I would like to store regexes in shared memory, but it seems like Boost regex falls just barely short of supporting this. In the basic_regex documentation, it says "The definition of basic_regex... is based very closely on class basic_string and fulfils the requirements for a constant-container of charT." This may be technically correct, however basic_string and other containers take an allocator template argument, while basic_regex does not. If basic_regex had an allocator it would reap all the same benefits that other string and container types do. In particular, it would be possible to use boost::interprocess to place them in shared memory. Since the allocator would be defaulted to allocator<charT>, I think it would IMO be compatible with the vast majority of existing code (not quite all because template<class charT, class traits> void f(basic_regex<charT, traits>) wouldn't work). Does this make sense? Do others agree that it would make regexes more like other strings and containers as advertised? Thanks, Mike