
Here the is full code example I have adapted from the aforementioned given example. The error message thrown is Unhandled exception at 0x7c81eb33 in Test.exe: Microsoft C++ exception: boost::bad_any_cast @ 0x0013f63c. If I comment out the two lines, ifstream ifs("multiple_sources.cfg"); store(parse_config_file(ifs, config_file_options), vm); everything works fine. #include <boost/program_options.hpp> namespace po = boost::program_options; #include <fstream> #include <iostream> #include <iterator> using namespace std; int main(int ac, char* av[]) { int compLevel = 0 ; string inputFileName ; int opt; // Declare a group of options that will be // allowed only on command line po::options_description generic("Generic options"); generic.add_options() ("version,v", "print version string") ("help", "produce help message") ; // Declare a group of options that will be // allowed both on command line and in // config file po::options_description config("Configuration"); config.add_options() ("input-file", po::value<string>(), "input file") ("optimization", po::value<int>(&opt)->default_value(10), "optimization level") ("include-path,I", po::value< vector<string> >()->composing(), "include path") ; // Hidden options, will be allowed both on command line and // in config file, but will not be shown to the user. //po::options_description hidden("Hidden options"); //hidden.add_options() // ("input-file", po::value<string>(), "input file") // ; po::options_description cmdline_options; cmdline_options.add(generic).add(config); po::options_description config_file_options; config_file_options.add(config); po::options_description visible("Allowed options"); visible.add(generic).add(config); po::positional_options_description p; p.add("input-file", -1); po::variables_map vm; store(po::command_line_parser(ac, av). options(cmdline_options).positional(p).run(), vm); if (vm.count("help")) { cout << visible << "\n"; return 0; } if (vm.count("input-file")) { cout << "Input file is: " << vm["input-file"].as<string>() << "\n"; ifstream ifs("multiple_sources.cfg"); store(parse_config_file(ifs, config_file_options), vm); //notify(vm); } if (vm.count("include-path")) { cout << "Include paths are: " << vm["include-path"].as<string>() << "\n"; } cout << "Optimization level is " << opt << "\n"; return 0; }