I reported that VC7 uses the correct implementation of reverse_iterator, and that this can be detected via BOOST_NO_STD_ITERATOR. Although this compiles, you cannot use reverse iterators. The problem is that the iterator is of the form (const) T *, and this fails because there is not a correct implementation of iterator_traits (due to a lack of partial template specialization) that *is* detected by BOOST_NO_STD_ITERATOR_TRAITS. The solution would therefore be to - in this case - provide an iterator wrapper around a standard pointer so it has the correct Iter::value_type, etc definitions. Is there an iterator_adaptor that provides this within boost? If not, should there be one? I am looking into this and will commit the solution to my iterator_adaptor-style implementation (sandbox/boost/fixed_string/detail/basic_string_impl.hpp). NOTE: If you want to add any of my modifications to the Wave flex_string implementation, feel free, but be warned that I haven't run full tests on it yet and thus there might be bugs in it (especially the pod_xxx --> traits_type::xxx, since these functions have different parameters). Regards, Reece _________________________________________________________________ It's fast, it's easy and it's free. Get MSN Messenger today! http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger