Hello, Vladimir Batov prepared a safebool helper class as part of his Pimpl library. I quote his rationale: /// An implicit conversion to bool (operator bool() const) is very much /// idiomatic and is often deployed in constructs like "if (foo)" and "if (!foo)" /// (with no explicit op!() defined). However, sadly, implementing "operator bool()" /// is *wrong* as that conversion kicks in far too often and unexpectedly. Like in /// "foo == 1", "foo+1", "1+foo" or potentially during lexical_cast<string>(foo) /// (if there are no op>>() and op<<() defined). Consequently, that "implicit /// conversion to bool" functionality has to be implemented in an indirect and /// somewhat awkward way via an implicit conversion to some other type. The best /// type for the purpose appears to be a pointer to a member function. For more /// see the chapter 7.7 in Alexandrescu's "Modern C++ Design" and the article at /// http://www.artima.com/cppsource/safebool.​html by Bjorn Karlsson. In the review of Pimpl Joej Falcou suggested to make safebool a CRTP base class. I had prepared such a class some time ego, and I've been using it for a while now. Is there interest in adding it to boost? Perhaps as part of the operators library? /** * CRTP class, that provides operator unspecified_bool_t() const, implemented in terms of * Derived::operator! */ template < class Derived, class Base = empty_t > class boolable : public Base { void unspecified_bool_t_f() {} typedef void (boolable::*unspecified_bool_t)(); public: operator unspecified_bool_t() const { return ! static_cast<Derived const&>( *this ) ? 0 : &boolable::unspecified_bool_t_f; } }; Usage: struct X : public boolable<X> { bool operator!() const { return condition; } // inherit operator unspecified_bool_t implemented in terms of the above operator! }; Regards, Kris