Hi, I've been trying to convert quickbook to use boost::string_ref, and there are a few missing features that might be useful: Construction from a pair of iterators, either std::basic_string::const_iterator, or boost::basic_string_ref::const_iterator. Which of course can be the same type, which is annoying but not too hard to work around. Easy conversion to std::basic_string. There's a C++11 explicit string operator, but that isn't much good for portable code. Something like a 'string' or 'to_string' member would do the trick. Support for comparisons with std::basic_string. The comparison operators are templates so they aren't called with an implicit conversion. Could use a template parameter for the type so that it picks up anything which is (implicitly?) convertible to boost::basic_string_ref, maybe using SFINAE. I didn't need it, but could probably also could do with a 'hash_value' function for boost::hash support. Is potentially error prone if the original string is modified or destroy, but there are some valid use cases. thanks, Daniel