Hi, I am using vector and similar containers extensively for my project, as well as boost circular_buffer_space_optimized (and adobe circular_queue which is built over vector ). They all work with iterator based concept. As I need to refer a portion of the vector (or circular buffer ) from within a class , I need to store index (not iterators, as container elements are movable ) or a pair of index within the class (using std::distance to get index from iterator, all of my containers are random access ). now from index , I create boost sub_range and use it. For arbitrary access, I store a vector<size_t>, and use boost permutation_iterator with the index. One point here, iterator is not very cheap when it is circular_buffer (and space optimized version) , as it is not merely a pointer , and it need to know container (i.e. store a ref to container) or store 3 pointers, one current pos, one for begin of buffer, one end of buffer (AFAIK boost uses former version). But after that I came to a different concept , a concept of view, which is used by boost uBLAS containers Blitz array and the STL low profile container valarray. Now it seems slice_view , range_view are cheaper for circular buffer, as only one reference to container is stored (esp when using permutation_iterator or arbitrary sequence access). Also seems cross referencing from one valarray to another is easier due to slice concept which can be directly stored. and it also provides some numeric operations. In my case all of the arrays are one dimensional, and they are array of some small struct (like point, tangent etc) most of them have some geometric meaning. And mostly I want to have some numeric operations on them (my original test implementation is in matlab and the array in matlab is just like Blitz array with little more overhead) I am little confused at this stage, which one to use. and if I use valarray kind of thing , how to use stl algorithm's with it (i.e how to get a iterator from it ? valarray is continuous so getting iterator is not a problem, but not sure whether I can sort a slice) . Can anyone help in this regard? abir -- Abir Basak, Member IEEE Software Engineer, Read Ink Technologies B. Tech, IIT Kharagpur email: abir@abirbasak.com homepage: www.abirbasak.com