As I work with Boost.Range, I frequently want to call a method returning an iterator_range and, from that range, instantiate a standard container. I have a couple of helpers I'd like to propose for inclusion in the Boost.Range library. /** * From any range compatible with Boost.Range, return an instance of any * class with a constructor accepting a compatible iterator pair. */ template<class TYPE, typename RANGE> TYPE make_from_range(const RANGE& range) { return TYPE(boost::begin(range), boost::end(range)); } It would probably be appropriate to provide a non-const RANGE& overload as well. make_from_range<CONTAINER>(range) is helpful for, e.g., passing an argument to a function accepting const CONTAINER&. But what if you want to declare a local instance of such a container? /** * From any range compatible with Boost.Range, instantiate any class * with a constructor accepting a compatible iterator pair. */ template<class TYPE> struct instance_from_range: public TYPE { template<typename RANGE> instance_from_range(const RANGE& range): TYPE(boost::begin(range), boost::end(range)) {} // Again, a non-const RANGE& overload would probably be useful. }; Usage example: instance_from_range< std::vector<std::string> > my_vector(function_returning_range_of_string()); Perhaps instance_from_range might be more controversial because of the recommendation not to subclass standard containers. My thought is that once the (nearly trivial) constructor has executed, we can completely disregard the subclass. I've used it in a context where instance_from_range<CONTAINER> is "sliced" to the CONTAINER itself. Though these are small enough to recreate on demand, they're useful enough that I'd like to have them available everywhere. I hope others might find them helpful too.