Hi, There is an existing problem with the version of rapidxml included with boost::property_tree (from the trunk, I have this as an SVN external into my own repository for my own project in preparation for it getting into boost proper). If I have something like: <field> </field> The intention is obviously to have the value of field be a space. Since spaces are trimmed and condensed, something like: <field> </field> will not work. It seems that condensing of whitespace is happening AFTER the expansion of the &#xNN; expansion (similarly with &#NNN;). This is obviously an error, because otherwise there is no way for me to have a space as the first or last character (or have multiple spaces in a row). It seems this bug is coming from RapidXML itself. I noticed the version of RapidXML is 1.0. So I downloaded the new version of RapidXML (1.13), and made the necessary changes in xml_parser_read_rapidxml.hpp (namely changing first_child() to first_node() ) and the above problem is fixed. So I would like to request that whoever is maintaining this update the version of RapidXML to the latest one available from the RapidXML website. As an addendum, it would be REAL nice if one could use flags to turn on or off string condensing and trimming. RapidXML provides options for both. Oh, and you might also want to fix this warning: In file included from /sandbox/mantra/trunk/Mantra-I/boost/property_tree/detail/json_parser_read.hpp:18, from /sandbox/mantra/trunk/Mantra-I/boost/property_tree/json_parser.hpp:14, from /sandbox/mantra/trunk/Mantra-I/src/core/admin/command.cpp:20: /sandbox/boost/boost/spirit.hpp:18:4: warning: #warning "This header is deprecated. Please use: boost/spirit/include/classic.hpp" (Remember that I have property_tree as an SVN external pointing to the property_tree directory in boost's trunk, so the above IS current boost head code). Minor issue. PreZ :)