How about an iostreams restriction? http://boost.org/libs/iostreams/doc/functions/restrict.html I'm using it to pull data out of a zip file and zlib_decompressor to decompress it. :-) Also, http://www.teslacore.it/wiki/index.php?title=BoostPicks#Restriction has some sample code. Hope this helps! Phillip

Dear Phillip, this is exactly was I was looking for! Thank you very much!! -- DI Christian Pfligersdorffer Software Engineering EOS GmbH