Question

I can’t get my head around why this won’t compile:

#include <map>
#include <string>

std::map<std::string, std::string> m;
m["jkl"] = "asdf";

I receive this compiler error:

Line 5: error: expected constructor, destructor, or type conversion before '=' token
compilation terminated due to -Wfatal-errors.

I swear I must be missing something simple here.

Answer 1

m["jkl"] = "asdf" is an expression. You can’t have an expression on its own outside of a function body. The only thing allowed outside of function bodies are declarations and definitions.