I'm converting parts of a program to use boost::shared_ptr. I have a vector of pointers to objects std::vector which now becomes std::vector<ObjectPtr> where ObjectPtr = make_shared<Object>(). I must support archives (XML files) created previously. Boost::serialization looks after saving STL collections very nicely. However, now, in reading a file, I need to determine the item_version in the collection so I can read in a vector of Object* or ObjectPtr. I also need to change the item_version when saving new files to indicate ObjectPtrs are being saved. I've dug through the documentation and source for hours but can't find anything that I can use (my own limitations perhaps?). This vector is NOT a class member and so class versioning does not apply unfortunately. Also, I am using bespoke load/save functions and NOT the serialize(Archive& ar, const unsigned int version) which would avoid this problem (I posted about this before - due to move from MFC to boost and mix of Doc/View architecture). I realize now I should have put a class version member of the MyAppDoc file structure which would be read in first. This would save all the pain. I've written some functions to interface with the file for the meantime, but I'm sure there must be a better solution: template inline void load_vsp_from_vp(Archive& ar, std::vector& vPtr, const char* name) { std::vector vT; ar & boost::serialization::make_nvp(name, vT); boost::shared_ptr<T> ptr; vPtr.assign(vT.size(), ptr); for(int i = 0; i != vT.size(); ++i) vPtr.at(i).reset( vT.at(i) ); } template inline void save_vp_from_vsp(Archive& ar, std::vector& vPtr, const char* name) { std::vector vT; for(int i = 0; i != vPtr.size(); ++i) vT.push_back( vPtr.at(i).get() ); ar & boost::serialization::make_nvp(name, vT); } Use as: save_vp_from_vsp(oa, m_vObject, "m_vObject"); Any help appreciated.