I suggest that you use libpqxx. libpqxx already has a utility template function called separated_list() that lives in the pqxx namespace for converting std containers into array literals. It also has a function template called "from_string" that lives in the same place. I imagine it's implemented in terms of stringstream though (otherwise, JTV would have written a bunch of specialisations or overloads), and as such is highly generic and unlikely to do what you want (I've just taken a look at the doxygen generated docs on pqxx.org, I cannot confirm that right now). In any case, you are better of with pqxx. You can make some noise on the pqxx mailing list if you feel that it ought to have this functionality. Regards, Peter Geoghegan -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general