Hi, First of all, thanks to everyone who's commented on the proposed any alternative. Given that the alignment issue doesn't seem to be easy to solve, I'm thinking of giving up on trying to align correctly, and just skip the "in place storing of value" optimization when it might be an issue. So I'm wondering, is the following a proper way to detect alignment problems? <code> typedef void* any_buffer_base_type; // could be customized int const ANY_BUFFER_SIZE = sizeof(any_buffer_base_type); union object_holder { char buffer[ANY_BUFFER_SIZE]; void* pointer; any_buffer_base_type alignment_dummy_; }; template<typename T> struct optimize { enum { T_size_ = sizeof(T) , base_size_ = sizeof(any_buffer_base_type) , size_ok_ = (T_size_ <= base_size_) , T_align_ = alignment_of<T>::value , base_align_= alignment_of<any_buffer_base_type>::value , align_ok_ = ((base_align_ % T_align_) == 0) , value = size_ok_ && align_ok_ }; }; </code> I looked at Optional's alignment tecnique, and couldn't come up with how to use it, given that the stored type for any changes at runtime. If there's something I missed about this, any help would be welcome. My current solution is to use the above shown code (assuming it works, of course!), and fall back on heap based storage when optimization is deemed not possible. The 2nd question I had to ask is, how should any's alignment type be specified, with a configuration macro or through a template parameter? I haven't posted an updated version, given that there's some issues (other than alignment) still requiring attention. Thanks in advance for any help you might provide, Pablo Aguilar