I was doing what I do regularly with std::maps... a m_plsts.erase( m_plsts.begin(), m_plsts.end() ); on a boost::ptr_map. It failed with an assertion error... Digging around, it came from ptr_container/detail/associative_ptr_container.hpp on line 117. It appears that every single erase (including that done by a key) has an assert for the list not being empty! Why is this the case? As far as I understand, it is valid to attempt to remove a key that does not exist. It follows that the same behaviour would occur whether the map was empty or not. Attempting to remove an element from an empty map should not result in an abort. If I'm unaware of some C++ convention I would love to be informed, however this definitely screams bug to me. Joshua Moore-Oliva