[-- I crosspost this message to Boost Users List by mistake yesterday --] I would like to suggest adding functions (template functions?) that would return "begin" and "end" iterators for given path. I think that it's clearer to see: for_each(directory_begin( dir_path ), directory_end(), do_something()); than: for_each(directory_iterator( dir_path ), directory_iterator(), do_somethig()); The functions directory_begin()/directory_end() would mimic the convenient container.begin()/container.end() functions used in STL. I know that it's merely a decoration but so is std::make_pair. It could just be: template <class Path> inline class basic_directory_iterator<Path> directory_begin(const Path& dp) { return basic_directory_iterator<Path>(dp); } template <class Path> inline class basic_directory_iterator<Path> directory_end() { return basic_directory_iterator<Path>(); } Vaclav Cechura