I think that any container that have the proper size would be ok. I would like to know too, if there are some compile flags that will prevent me to do: void outOfBound() { typedef boost::multi_array<double, 3> array_type; array_type A( boost::extents[3][4][2] ); A[12][3][43] = 8.0; printf( "Value: %f\n", A[12][3][43] ); } either at compile-time or at run time.