Hi, Is it possible to use shared_ptr to manage stringstreams, and still use the << operator on the stringstream? example: #include <iostream> boost::shared_ptr< std::stringstream > sharedStream(new std::stringstream("hello world")); std::cerr << (*sharedStream).str() << std::endl; (*sharedStream) << "!"; std::cerr << (*sharedStream).str() << std::endl; std::stringstream tr; tr << "hello everyone"; tr << "!"; std::cerr << tr.str() << std::endl; output: hello world !elloworld hello everyone! Thanks, Ed Johnson