Struebing, Axel, le-tex [axel.struebing@le-tex.de]:

Reading the documentation about boost::iostreams library I could not find the information which return type the boost::iostreams::stream's class is giving me calling read().

From the documentation, a boost::iostreams::stream derives from an std::basic_[i|o]stream, depending on the model of its underlying Device. In your example, the device is a Source, so I guess that the stream derives from std::basic_istream, whose read(char*, streamsize) method returns a basic_istream, not a streamsize.

The library offers the "streamsize read(stream, char*, streamsize)" function template. Using it in your example yould give something like (not tested): #include #include #include int main(void){ namespace bio = boost::iostreams; bio::streambio::file_source istr(std::string("in.pdf")); char buffer[10]; std::streamsize i = bio::read(istr,buffer,10); return 0; } HTH, Éric Malenfant --------------------------------------------- Two wrongs don't make a right but three rights make a left.