Both Filesystem V2 and V3 status() functions return an object of class file_status. file_status is just a thin wrapper around a file_type enum: enum file_type { status_error, file_not_found, regular_file, directory_file, symlink_file, block_file, character_file, fifo_file, socket_file, type_unknown }; It was designed that way on the assumption that file_status would eventually include additional state information. But that never happened, so it looks like over-design my part. The fix would be to rename the enum as file_status, and remove the current class file_status entirely. That would break a certain amount of existing code, but I suspect the C++ committee would force such a change anyhow for TR2, so better to get it over with now. Comments? Opinions? --Beman