Hello, To all discussing about how to create an "ultimate" string, I'd like to remind you following "ultimate" strings existing there: 1. QString: http://doc.qt.nokia.com/latest/qstring.html 2. Glib::ustring: http://library.gnome.org/devel/glibmm/unstable/classGlib_1_1ustring.html 3. wxString: http://docs.wxwidgets.org/trunk/classwx_string.html 4. icu::UnicodeString http://icu-project.org/apiref/icu4c/classUnicodeString.html 5. CString http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174288(v=VS.100).aspx Now Questions: -------------- 1. Why do YOU think you'll be able to create something "better"? 2. Why do YOU think boost::string would be adopted in favor of std::string or one of the current widely used QString/ustring/wxString/UnicodeString/CString? 3. What so painful problems are you going to solve that would make it so much better then widely used and adopted std::string? Iterators? Mutability? Performance? (Clue: there is no painful problems with std::string) Now Suggestion: --------------- 1. Accept it that there is quite small chance that something that is not std::string would be widely accepted 2. Try to solve existing "string" problems by using same std::string and adding few things to handle it better. Clue: take a look on what Boost.Locale does. Best Regards, Artyom