This function claims to remove a single character at index p, but it actually removes p+1 characters beginning at p. So r.erase(0) removes the first character, but r.erase(1) removes the second and third, and r.erase(2) removes the second, third and fourth. This is not a useful API. The overload is present in the SGI STL header that we imported, but it isn't documented in the API reference. The erase overloads that are documented are: erase(const iterator& p) erase(const iterator& f, const iterator& l) erase(size_type i, size_type n); Having an erase(size_type p) overload that erases a single character (as the comment says it does) might be useful, but would be inconsistent with std::basic_string::erase(size_type p = 0, size_type n = npos), which erases from p to the end of the string when called with a single argument. Since the function isn't part of the documented API, doesn't do what it claims to do (or anything useful) and "fixing" it would leave it inconsistent with basic_string, I'm just removing that overload. libstdc++-v3/ChangeLog: PR libstdc++/102048 * include/ext/rope (rope::erase(size_type)): Remove broken function. Tested powerpc64le-linux. Committed to trunk.