Question

I know this is quite a ridiculous question but this is quite confusing and irritating, as something that should work simply is not. I’m using Code Blocks with the GCC compiler and I am trying to simply create a string variable in my class

#ifndef ALIEN_LANGUAGE
#define ALIEN_LANGUAGE

#include <string>

class Language
{
    public:

    private:
        string str;
};

#endif

Strange enough, my compiler halts me with an error saying this:

C:\Documents and Settings\...|11|error: `string' does not name a type|
||=== Build finished: 1 errors, 0 warnings ===|

For some reason, it is unable to find the class “string” which for some reason, my main.cpp is able to detect “#include ” while my language class is not able for some reason.

This is the main I wrote quickly just to see it main itself is able to see the string file:

//main.cpp

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include "alien_language.h"

using namespace std;

int main()
{
    string str;

    return 0;
}

Does anyone know what’s going on?

Answer 1

using namespace std;

That’s what’s going on.

You don’t have std:: prefixing the string in your class. Everything in the standard library is in the namespace std.

It is generally regarded as bad practice to use using namespace std;, by the way. For more information on why and what to do instead, check out this question: Using std Namespace.