Working with boost::interprocess I came across the following question. using namespace boost::interprocess; // ... Assume that I've declared all the necessary allocators // ... for chars and std::pair<my_string,my_string> here typedef basic_string<char,my_char_allocator_t> my_string; typedef map<my_string,my_string,std::less<my_string>,my_string_string_allocator> my_map; managed_shared_memory shm(open_or_create,"BogusMemory",0x1000) my_map *the_map = some_how_construct_map_in_shared_memory(shm); // So now I have a map residing in shared memory // The only way to search within this map I could // find was the following. my_map::iterator i = the_map->find(my_string("BOGUS",my_char_allocator_t(shm))); This might throw since the search string is constructed within shared memory although it is only needed temporary and destructed right after the statement. Is there a way to use heap or stack memory for thinks like that ? Thank you very much O.