Question

expected unqualified-id before ‘{‘

Where is this error on my code? Thanks everyone!

#include <iostream>

using std::cout;
using std::endl;

//function prototypes
void findsmallest (int[], int &); 
void findsmallest  (int scores [], int & min);

int main()
{
    //declare variables
    int smallest = 0;
    int scores[20] = { 90, 54, 23,  75, 67,
                       89, 99, 100, 34, 99, 
                       97, 76, 73,  72, 56, 
                       73, 72, 65,  86, 90 };
    findsmallest(scores, smallest);                   
    return 0;

    //call function find smallest
    findsmallest (scores, smallest);                   

    cout << "Minimum value in the array is " << smallest << endl;

    system ("pause");
    return 0;
}

//function definition

void findsmallest(int scores [], int & min);
{

    min = scores[0];
    int i;

    for(i = 0; i < 20; i++)
    {
        if(scores[i] < min)
        {
            min = scores[i];
        }
    }
}


//end display findsmallest
system ("pause");
return 0;

Answer 1

The error is in the first line of the findsmallest() function definition. Get rid of the semicolon and it should work (barring other errors in the code — I didn’t check it for correctness).

void findsmallest(int scores [], int & min); <-------semicolon
{

vs

void findsmallest(int scores [], int & min) <--------no semicolon
{

The error is telling you that the open brace ({) that follows the semicolon is lacking a preceding class/struct/union/function declaration, so the compiler doesn’t know what to do with it. Remove the semicolon and now the compiler knows that it’s the body of a function definition.