I'm looking for ideas how to integrate Boost.Process and Boost.Asio. As of today it is possible to use asynchronous I/O with Boost.Process. However you have to pass around low-level file descriptors/HANDLEs like this: bp::child c = start_child(); bp::pistream &is = c.get_stdout(); #if defined(BOOST_POSIX_API) ba::posix::stream_descriptor in(io_service); #elif defined(BOOST_WINDOWS_API) ba::windows::stream_handle in(io_service); #endif in.assign(is.handle().release()); is.async_read_some(...); It would be nice if you could write: bp::child c = start_child(); bp::pistream &is = c.get_stdout(); is.async_read_some(...); The first question is then where to pass the io_service instance to Boost.Process? In Boost.Asio I/O objects are typically initialized with io_service. As both child and pistream are created in the library io_service would need to be passed to Boost.Process when the child is spawned. However developers who don't want to use asynchronous I/O really shouldn't create an io_service instance first. If io_service is not passed to the constructor I wonder where to pass it then? As far as I see there are no recommendations or guidelines in the Boost.Asio documentation (probably because all I/O objects so far are always initialized with io_service). Another idea is of course adding a new class to Boost.Process (pistream would then only be used for synchronous I/O)? Right now I'd probably go this way? Boris