Okay, I have a fix. It isn't as pretty as I'd like it to be, but it is forward and backward binary compatible. I'm attaching the patch to the issue, which you can find by clicking the link below. Please review when you have a chance.
http://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/attachment/12383346/stdcxx-901.patc h Note that I left some commented references to a new inline method gslice::is_empty(). If I submit the fix to 4.2.x I plan to remove these lines. When the fix goes to 4.3.x I'd like to use the clean solution which allows me to eliminate the friendship and direct member access. I also realize that the test is currently incomplete. I will obviously be working to finish up the test before submitting the patch. Travis
