Question

As the title says, I’m getting a compiler error in a VS2008 C++ program. I’m not sure how better to describe my problem than in code. The following compiles unless I uncomment the TEST line.

#include <windows.h>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

//#define TEST //<-- uncomment for error
#ifdef TEST
void test(void* interface)
{
    return;
}
#endif
int main()
{
    cout << "Hello World" << endl;
    system("PAUSE");
    return(0);
}

When uncommented I get the following errors:

1>main.cpp(7) : error C2332: 'struct' : missing tag name
1>main.cpp(7) : error C2144: syntax error : '<unnamed-tag>' should be preceded by ')'
1>main.cpp(7) : error C2144: syntax error : '<unnamed-tag>' should be preceded by ';'
1>main.cpp(7) : error C2059: syntax error : ')'
1>main.cpp(8) : warning C4094: untagged 'struct' declared no symbols
1>main.cpp(8) : error C2143: syntax error : missing ';' before '{'
1>main.cpp(8) : error C2447: '{' : missing function header (old-style formal list?)

This is unmanaged code, so I’m not sure what the issue with the word interface is. Is there any way to get this code to compile as is, or do I have to change every instance of the term interface to something else?

Thanks!

Answer 1

If your code needs to include Windows.h then you should avoid using the name interface as it’s reserved for the use that the Windows SDK has reserved for it (essentially it’s a synonym for the keyword struct). There are probably hacks to work around that problem (you could #undef interface after including the SDK headers), but you should probably avoid using that identifier.