Thread library: get thread id

I'm using boost_1_29_0 and need to get the id of the current thread. Is there a way to get the id of the current thread using boost? I don't see how I can access the current thread (Is there some sort of current function?). If I could access the current thread, I could write a getId() function (in a class subclassed from boost::thread). Only problem there is the return type. It seems the id is an int in windows environment, a pthread_t in POSIX and a MPTaskID in MACOS. Those last two seems to be pointers to struct. I guess it is possible to cast all of them to long (using reinterpret casting), but maybe I am overlooking something then. thanks, Olivier.