Didn't find any comments on the new filesystem implementation so here are mine - Would it be possible to store the new files in the vault? I find it inconvenient to check out a special branch just to read the documentation. - I haven't compiled the new files but I have had a good look at the documentation and the source. My impression is that it is a very nice implementation. (All the #ifdefs make the source hard to follow but I'm not the maintainer) - Specially I like the switch from default portable syntax to default native syntax. It means that I no longer need to change the default name checker in each application and that the "native_" prefix from the access functions are gone. (Maybe the name checker could be a template parameter (with default "none") for those who still want to use it. Would complicate implementation of operations.) The comments I have on the new implementation is: - Operations are limited to std::string (and std::wstring on win32) as external type. Why not allow any range of characters? Current implementation will not work with const_string, flex_string and a basic_string with a custom allocator. - Why not have a static locale member in the class instead of using the utf-8 facet. The locale could then be used both for internal/external conversion via the codecvt facet and get operator< to work with a custom locale. (for posix the locale would default to locale::global() with the utf-8 facet added) I also had hopes for some new things that didn't appear in the new implementation. - non-throwing is_* functions. I find it very inconvenient and error prune to put try/catch around each is_directory call. Calling is_accessible before every other is_* function is an option but not much easier and still leaves a risk for an exception if another process is accessing the file. The throwing is_* functions also makes it impossible(?) to use the directory iterator with algorithms like remove_copy_if(directory_iterator(path), directory_iterator(), back_inserter(filelist), is_directory) My suggestion is to add non-throwing overloads where a second parameter tells what the function should return in case of error. e.g. is_directory(path, true). - The directory iterator is still very limited since you can't specify a filter (e.g. "*.txt"). If used on a win32 system with a mounted posix disk or a posix system with a CD problems might arise. (There is no portable way to tell if "FILE.TXT" matches "*.txt"). - Why doesn't last_write_time return a boost::ptime