Hi Fokes: Ok, I've got a standard windows-stle ini file. I can check that a section exists, and then get that section, using it->second, where it is declared as: boost::property_tree::ptree::const_assoc_iterator it; I've then assigned the it->second variable to a new property_tree. What I now need to do is iterate though the tree I've just assigned and get all the section keys/values. I'm using the following code to add them all to a map: std::map SectionProps; BOOST_FOREACH(boost::property_tree::ptree::value_type &v, SectionTree) { Key =v.first; Value =v.second; SectionProps.insert(std::make_pair(Key, Value)); } It seems that even though thwe values in the ini file will be strings, of the vorm Key1=valu1 as normal, I am still getting another ptree as my second argument of the pair. How do I obtain the value from this? There are never any sub sections. Any help appreciated. Cheers Sean.