Hello I came across the following interface inconsistency in Boost.Filesystem V3 (Boost 1.46.0) in boost::filesystem::path Windows: const std::string string() const std::wstring& wstring() Linux: const std::string& string() const std::wstring wstring() We converted V2 code looking like this (necessary since filename() in V3 returns a path instead of a string): const std::string& filename=path.filename(); The converted V3 code: const std::string& filename=path.filename().string(); Obviously this code crashes in Linux since filename() returns a temporary object and string() returns a reference to one of its members. However this code works in Windows due to the different return types. My question: Wouldn't it make sense for all methods to return a value instead of a reference? It would ease the transition from V2 to V3 and avoid subtle programming errors. Regards, Peter.