One more addition to the typeof library is a macro, that, unlike BOOST_TYPEOF(), which removes top-level consts and references, attempts to be closer to the decltype, by preserving lvalue-ness of its argument: BOOST_TYPEOF_PRESERVE_LVALUE(expr) I do admit that the name is quite clumzy :( It is directly based on the rules of binding a reference. The following table outlines which types are returned: Expression lvalue? typeof_preserve_lvalue(expression) ---------- ------- ------ int n; lvalue int& const int m; lvalue const int& int& rn = n; lvalue int& const int& rm; lvalue const int& int foo1(); int const int foo2(); const int& (unfortunately, in both VC7.1 and GCC 3.3) int& foo3(); lvalue int& const int& foo4(); lvalue const int& int(21) int 21 int The BOOST_AUTO remains based on the BOOST_TYPEOF. The references, in the same way as proposed in http://www.osl.iu.edu/~jajarvi/publications/papers/decltype_n1478.pdf, should be specified explicitly: int& foo(); BOOST_AUTO(v, foo()); // auto v = foo(); BOOST_AUTO(&r, foo()); // auto& r = foo(); BOOST_AUTO(const& cr, foo()); // auto const& cr = foo(); See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/boost/files/typeof.zip (or Spirit repository, TYPEOF_DEV branch). As always any comments are welcome. Thanks, Arkadiy