Question

I am building a templated class “myTree” that includes a private struct “myNode”. I also have a private function “findNode” which I would like to return a myNode*. However, when I try and define the “findNode” I am getting 5 errors saying that seem to stem from the first error which says that I am missing a semicolon in between “myNode” and the “*”.

Here is the basic code:

template <size_t N, typename ElemType>
class myTree {
public:
  //...
private:
  struct myNode{
    //...
  };
  myNode* findNode(const otherClass<N>& key);
};

template <size_t N, typename ElemType>
myNode* myTree<N, ElemType>::findNode(const otherClass<N>& key) {
  return 0;
}

I tried changing the return type to void and the errors disappeared, meaning I assume that there is something wrong with the way I am using my struct.

The errors are:
1) Syntax error: missing ‘;’ before ‘*’
2) missing type specifier – int assumed
3) ‘N’ undeclared identifier
4) ‘ElemType’ undeclared identifier
5) ‘N’ undeclared identifier

These all point to the function declaration line ( myNode* myTree::findNode(const otherClass& key) { ).

Answer 1

myNode is an inner class and needs to be qualified in a return type:

template <size_t N, typename ElemType>
typename myTree<N,ElemType>::myNode*
myTree<N, ElemType>::findNode(const otherClass<N>& key)