Confusing error message

Confusing error message

[Carlo Wood]

Hi,

I ran into the following confusing error message:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
class A;

bool A::foo(void)
{
  return true;
}
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gives:

errmsg.cc:4: no `bool A::foo()' member function declared in class `A'


while the real problem is that I didn't include the correct header file
(but another header file that only contained a forward declaration).

In a large program this can be quite confusing, wouldn't it be better to say:

errmsg.cc:4: class `A' is only a forward declaration.

Or something like that?

-- 
 Carlo Wood  <carlo@runaway.xs4all.nl>

Re: Confusing error message

[Nathan Sidwell]

Carlo Wood wrote:
> [confusing error message from defining a function in a declared,
> but undefined class]
Yes, it would be better, and here's a patch.

Whilst we're on the issue, what do people think about also reporting
where the declaration of class A is?, ie

nodefn.ii:4: invalid use of undefined type `class A'
nodefn.ii:1: declaration of `class A'

This goes for other cases of reporting undefined type abuses too.

nathan
-- 
Dr Nathan Sidwell :: Computer Science Department :: Bristol University
      You can up the bandwidth, but you can't up the speed of light      
nathan@acm.org  http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~nathan/  nathan@cs.bris.ac.uk

Re: Confusing error message

[Jason Merrill]

Applied, thanks.