This is a request for comments on a delimited string inserter/extractor facility for Boost. The initial motivation is a need for Boost.Filesystem class path inserters and extractors to handle paths with embedded spaces. The problems stems from standard library stream I/O not round-tripping strings with embedded spaces, so a general solution might be of interest. It is a bit surprising that Boost doesn't seem to already have such a utility. The general solution presented here follows very common practice as to the format: strings are enclosed in delimiters on output and the delimiters (if present) are stripped on input. In the external format, an escape character precedes itself or the delimiter character should either be present in the string. The default delimiter character is the double-quote (") and the default escape character is the backslash (\). These defaults can be overridden. Example: const std::string expected("foo\\bar, \" *"); std::cout << delimit(expected); std::string actual; std::stringstream ss; ss << delimit(expected); ss >> undelimit(actual); assert(expected == actual); The output to cout is "foo\\bar, \" *" A prototype is available at http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/branches/filesystem3/boost/delimit_string.hpp. It is a header only implementation. Do you think this component, with suitable documentation, tests, etc., should become a part of Boost? If so, What library should it be part of? Seems too small to be a library all of its own. Where should the header live? What namespace should it be in? Are delimit() and undelimit() suitable names for the functions? Any other comments? Thanks, --Beman