Question

If I use this code outside of a method or winmain:

ostringstream vertexid;
vertexid << "bob";

vertexid << " ";
vertexid << " ";

vertexid << 48348093490;

I get all sorts of syntax errors. How does scope play into this why is this happening?

Answer 1

You can do something like this:

std::ostringstream ss;

#define nil(x) ((x), 0)
int x = nil(ss << "Hello");
int y = nil(ss << ", World!");
int z = nil(ss << std::endl);

If you really don’t like thinking up variable names, then you can do something even crazier:

#define nilPASTE(x, y) x ## y
#define nilPASTE2(x, y) nilPASTE(x, y)
#define nil2(x) static int nilPASTE2(line_, __LINE__) = nil(x)
nil2(ss << "Goodbye");
nil2(ss << ", Sun!");
nil2(ss << std::endl);

You asked:

How does scope play into this why is this happening?

I assume you mention scope because that is what some error message spat out. But the answer to both parts of that question is that the C++ compiler is following the rules of the C++ language, which does not allow statements to just appear anywhere. They can only appear where they are allowed, which are in functions and method bodies. The reason my technique is allowed is because I am using expressions, and expressions can appear in more places. In particular, they are allowed to appear in an initializer to a variable. And of course, variable declarations are allowed on the outer most level of a translation unit.

All that gobbly gook means: put your statements inside functions and methods.