hi, Boost users Suppose I created a large data in a function and want to return it back to where the function was called. I want to return the pointer so that the deep copy of the large data is not needed and memory leak is nicely handled. Can someone let me know how to do it? Here is something come up in my mind: boost::shared_ptr< std::vector<int> > getV(){ boost::shared_ptr< std::vector<int> > v; v->push_back(1); v->push_back(2); // bla bla bla return v; } int main(){ boost::shared_ptr< std::vector<int> > v = getV(); std::cout << v->at(0); return 0; } I got the following message when run the program: /usr/include/boost/shared_ptr.hpp:253: T* boost::shared_ptr<T>::operator->() const [with T = std::vector<int, std::allocator<int> >]: Assertion `px != 0' failed. Aborted How can I get it correct? Is there any deep copy when the getV() return the shared_ptr? Thanks a lot. zl2k