Hi boosters, I'm trying to create a class that models the concept of adaptable generator [1]. The idea is that it generates pointers to test data objects which I'd like to then put inside of smart pointers such as shared_ptr or scoped_ptr (or even std::shared_ptr) via generate_n, etc. This is a (non-compilable) example of my intentions: #include <algorithm> #include <iostream> #include <memory> #include <vector> #include <iterator> struct base { int i; }; struct derived : public base { int z; }; struct generator { typedef base result_type; result_type* operator()() { return new derived(); } }; int main(void) { std::vector z; std::generate_n(std::back_inserter(z), 5, generator()); return 0; } The std::shared_ptr is incidental; it could have been boost::shared_ptr, etc - its up to client code to decide. I get this to work fine when result_type is say boost::shared_ptr<base> but what I really like is for it to be a raw pointer; is there some boost magic (or standard C++ 11 magic) I can apply to convert it to the value_type of the container I'm trying to generate? Many thanks for your time, Marco -- So young, and already so unknown -- Pauli blog: http://mcraveiro.blogspot.com [1] http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/AdaptableGenerator.html