Hallo Éric, although it is not an exact fit it will be of value in evaluating my options. kind regards Axel Strübing

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Reading the documentation about boost::iostreams library I could not find the information which return type the boost::iostreams::stream's class is giving me calling read().

From the documentation, a boost::iostreams::stream derives from an std::basic_[i|o]stream, depending on the model of its underlying Device. In your example, the device is a Source, so I guess that the stream derives from std::basic_istream, whose read(char*, streamsize) method returns a basic_istream, not a streamsize.

The library offers the "streamsize read(stream, char*, streamsize)" function template. Using it in your example yould give something like (not tested):

#include <boost/iostreams/stream.hpp> #include <boost/iostreams/device/file.hpp> #include <boost/iostreams/operations.hpp>

int main(void){ namespace bio = boost::iostreams; bio::stream<bio::file_source> istr(std::string("in.pdf")); char buffer[10]; std::streamsize i = bio::read(istr,buffer,10); return 0; }

HTH,

Éric Malenfant --------------------------------------------- Two wrongs don't make a right but three rights make a left. --