Dear All, This does what I want: uint8_t i = 65; printf("i = %d\n",i); It prints "65". This doesn't: uint8_t i = 65; cout << "i = " << i << "\n"; It treats i as a char, since uint8_t is a typedef for char deep in some header file somewhere, and prints "A". I was hoping that boost::format would do what I wanted: uint8_t i = 65; cout << boost::format("i = %d\n") % i; But it seems to have the same, unwanted, behaviour as cout<<i. Is there anything that I can do to my code to get the effect that I want? If not, is there anything that can be changed in boost::format to make it do what I want? At the moment I have to write things like cout << "i = " << static_cast<unsigned int>(i) << "\n"; which is a lot of typing and obfuscates what is actually going on. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Cheers, Phil.