what is your basis for that assertion?
Because I wrote that header thinking (wrongly, because of my ADL ignorance and VC support) that it would be used for ADL lookup: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // // (C) Copyright Ion Gaztañaga 2005. // Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. // (See accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at // http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt) // ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// #ifndef BOOST_POINTER_CAST_HPP #define BOOST_POINTER_CAST_HPP namespace boost { //static_pointer_cast overload for raw pointers template<class T, class U> inline T* static_pointer_cast(U *ptr) { return static_cast<T*>(ptr); } //.. } // namespace boost #endif //BOOST_POINTER_CAST_HPP I wrote this because I wanted to use it though ADL. If static_pointer_cast<Target>() can't be used through ADL, it's certainly a very limited header. Unless I know that my pointer can be a raw pointer, I know all the possible pointer types and I include all the headers, this header is useless. Until Boost 1.34 this header didn't exist. But I still see a need for customizable cast functions. Since shared_ptr is de-facto standard, I'm just proposing new generic cast functions. What about template specialization?: //pointer_cast.hpp namespace boost { template<class TargetPtr> class cast_to; template<class T> class cast_to<T*> { template<class Source> static T * using_static_cast(Source *source) { return static_cast<T*>(source); } } } //namespace boost { namespace boost { //smart_ptr.hpp template<class T> class cast_to<smart_ptr<T> > { template<class Source> static smart_ptr<T> using_static_cast(const smart_ptr<Source> &source); } } //namespace boost { // pointer independent code BasePtr d_ptr = ... typedef typename boost::pointer_to_other<BasePtr, Base>::type DerivedPtr; DerivedPtr target = cast_to<DerivedPtr>::using_static_cast(b_ptr); //////////////////////////////// Sorry if there are errors in the code. Any suggestion? Time to request cast operator overloading for user classes? Regards, Ion