Thanks all for the discussion/suggestions on the first version. As usual Boosters have very helpful suggestions. I've uploaded version 2 of super_string to the vault and put an improved set of documentation online: http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/libraries/super_string/index.html Vault location: http://tinyurl.com/dbcye Probably the biggest thing in this version is an immutable version using the proposed boost::const_string. http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/libraries/super_string/classbasic__const... After using it a bit, it seems to me that the immutable approach is likely viable for most applications. To see the impact, I wrote a little performance test. On mutating operations const_super_string is clearly slower. The benefit on non-mutating operations is minimal. However, this version is probably not as optimized as possible and it under emphasizes allocation, so I expect in actual practice the mutable version may better than these tests demonstrate. Your mileage may vary. 10 trials 500000 iterations/trial const append test --> total elapsed: 00:00:25.071687 mutable append test --> total elapsed: 00:00:21.904486 10 trials 1000000 iterations/trial const trim test --> total elapsed: 00:00:14.977803 mutable trim test --> total elapsed: 00:00:11.693688 10 trials 100000 iterations/trial const contains regex test --> total elapsed: 00:00:27.044718 mutable contains regex test --> total elapsed: 00:00:27.633608 10 trials 100000 iterations/trial const split regex test --> total elapsed: 00:00:16.517079 mutable split regex test --> total elapsed: 00:00:17.582708 Other notable changes in this version: * Make modification functions chainable -- thanks Mark Mutz * Add append_file function -- Thx to suggestion by Pavel Vozenilek super_string data; data.append_file("data1.txt").append_file(data2.txt); * Type conversion with user supplied stringstream std::ostringstream ss; s.setprecision( super_string s; ss << std::setprecision(3); double dbl = 1.987654321; int i = 1000; s.append(dbl, i, i, " stuff", dbl, ss); //s == "1.99 1000 1000 1.99 stuff 1.99" //ss -- has been modified * Add boost.format capabilities -- Thx to suggestion by Pavel Vozenilek super_string s; double d = 1.123456789; int i = 1000; s.append_formatted(d, i , d, i, "a string", "%-7.2f %-7d %-7.2f %-7d %s"); //s == "1.12 1000 1.12 1000 a string" * Removed all const _copy overloads in mutable string to reduce the api size. * Add additional template overloads to support multi-append cases like double double d = 1.54; int i = 25; s.append("double: ", d, " is ", i); Currently up to 5 parameters Enjoy, Jeff