Question

I’m currently trying to compile a PHP driver for MongoDB using Visual Studio 2008 and I’m facing some problems with the compilation process.

Every time I try to build the project, the compiler keeps throwing me errors like these:

...\mongo_php_driver\bson.h(50) : error C2143: syntax error : missing ')' before '*'
...\mongo_php_driver\bson.h(50) : error C2143: syntax error : missing '{' before '*'
...\mongo_php_driver\bson.h(50) : error C2059: syntax error : 'type'
...\mongo_php_driver\bson.h(50) : error C2059: syntax error : ')'
...\mongo_php_driver\bson.h(53) : error C2143: syntax error : missing ')' before '*'
...\mongo_php_driver\bson.h(53) : error C2143: syntax error : missing '{' before '*'
...\mongo_php_driver\bson.h(53) : error C2059: syntax error : ','
...\mongo_php_driver\bson.h(53) : error C2059: syntax error : ')'
...\mongo_php_driver\bson.h(56) : error C2143: syntax error : missing ')' before '*'
...\mongo_php_driver\bson.h(56) : error C2143: syntax error : missing '{' before '*'
...\mongo_php_driver\bson.h(56) : error C2059: syntax error : ','
...\mongo_php_driver\bson.h(56) : error C2059: syntax error : ')'

There are about 740 of these and all of these errors are inside the header files. From what it says, I can understand that there are lots of syntax errors, but what I don’t understand is, the syntax looks just fine to me. I don’t know C very well, so I’m probably wrong on this though.

I thought the Visual Studio compiler is just acting up and throwing me fake errors, but I couldn’t find anything on Google about such issue. And in fact, I also tried to compile this with Code::Blocks only to find the same results. So there must be something really stupid that I forgot that causes these errors.

This is the content of bson.h as a reference (I’ve marked the line where the errors start):

/**
 *  Copyright 2009-2011 10gen, Inc.
 *
 *  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 *  you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 *  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 *  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 *  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 *  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 *  limitations under the License.
 */
#ifndef PHP_BSON_H
#define PHP_BSON_H 1


#define OID_SIZE 12

#define BSON_DOUBLE 1
#define BSON_STRING 2
#define BSON_OBJECT 3
#define BSON_ARRAY 4
#define BSON_BINARY 5
#define BSON_UNDEF 6
#define BSON_OID 7
#define BSON_BOOL 8
#define BSON_DATE 9
#define BSON_NULL 10
#define BSON_REGEX 11
#define BSON_DBREF 12
#define BSON_CODE__D 13
#define BSON_SYMBOL 14
#define BSON_CODE 15
#define BSON_INT 16
#define BSON_TIMESTAMP 17
#define BSON_LONG 18
#define BSON_MINKEY -1
#define BSON_MAXKEY 127

#define GROW_SLOWLY 1048576
#define INVALID_STRING_LEN(len) (len < 0 || len > (64*1024*1024))

#define CREATE_BUF_STATIC(n) char b[n];         \
  buf.start = buf.pos = b;                      \
  buf.end = b+n;


/*** Line 50 starts from here ***/
int php_mongo_serialize_size(char *start, buffer *buf TSRMLS_DC);

/* driver */
int php_mongo_serialize_element(char*, zval**, buffer*, int TSRMLS_DC);

/* objects */
void php_mongo_serialize_date(buffer*, zval* TSRMLS_DC);
void php_mongo_serialize_regex(buffer*, zval* TSRMLS_DC);
void php_mongo_serialize_code(buffer*, zval* TSRMLS_DC);
void php_mongo_serialize_ts(buffer*, zval* TSRMLS_DC);
void php_mongo_serialize_bin_data(buffer*, zval* TSRMLS_DC);
void php_mongo_serialize_int32(buffer*, zval* TSRMLS_DC);
void php_mongo_serialize_int64(buffer*, zval* TSRMLS_DC);

/* simple types */
void php_mongo_serialize_double(buffer*, double);
void php_mongo_serialize_string(buffer*, char*, int);
void php_mongo_serialize_long(buffer*, int64_t);
void php_mongo_serialize_int(buffer*, int);
void php_mongo_serialize_byte(buffer*, char);
void php_mongo_serialize_bytes(buffer*, char*, int);
void php_mongo_serialize_key(buffer*, char*, int, int TSRMLS_DC);
void php_mongo_serialize_ns(buffer*, char* TSRMLS_DC);

int php_mongo_write_insert(buffer*, char*, zval*, int max TSRMLS_DC);
int php_mongo_write_batch_insert(buffer*, char*, int flags, zval*, int max TSRMLS_DC);
int php_mongo_write_query(buffer*, mongo_cursor* TSRMLS_DC);
int php_mongo_write_get_more(buffer*, mongo_cursor* TSRMLS_DC);
int php_mongo_write_delete(buffer*, char*, int, zval* TSRMLS_DC);
int php_mongo_write_update(buffer*, char*, int, zval*, zval* TSRMLS_DC);
int php_mongo_write_kill_cursors(buffer*, int64_t TSRMLS_DC);

#define php_mongo_set_type(buf, type) php_mongo_serialize_byte(buf, (char)type)
#define php_mongo_serialize_null(buf) php_mongo_serialize_byte(buf, (char)0)
#define php_mongo_serialize_bool(buf, b) php_mongo_serialize_byte(buf, (char)b)

int resize_buf(buffer*, int);

int zval_to_bson(buffer*, HashTable*, int TSRMLS_DC);
char* bson_to_zval(char*, HashTable* TSRMLS_DC);

/**
 * Initialize buffer to contain "\0", so mongo_buf_append will start appending
 * at the beginning.
 */
void mongo_buf_init(char *dest);

/**
 * Takes a buffer and a string to add to the buffer.  The buffer must be large
 * enough to append the string and the string must be null-terminated. This will
 * not work for strings containing null characters (e.g., BSON).
 */
void mongo_buf_append(char *dest, char *piece);

#if PHP_C_BIGENDIAN
// reverse the bytes in an int
// wheeee stupid byte tricks
#define BYTE1_32(b) ((b & 0xff000000) >> 24)
#define BYTE2_32(b) ((b & 0x00ff0000) >> 8)
#define BYTE3_32(b) ((b & 0x0000ff00) << 8)
#define BYTE4_32(b) ((b & 0x000000ff) << 24)
#define MONGO_32(b) (BYTE4_32(b) | BYTE3_32(b) | BYTE2_32(b) | BYTE1_32(b))

#define BYTE1_64(b) ((b & 0xff00000000000000ll) >> 56)
#define BYTE2_64(b) ((b & 0x00ff000000000000ll) >> 40)
#define BYTE3_64(b) ((b & 0x0000ff0000000000ll) >> 24)
#define BYTE4_64(b) ((b & 0x000000ff00000000ll) >> 8)
#define BYTE5_64(b) ((b & 0x00000000ff000000ll) << 8)
#define BYTE6_64(b) ((b & 0x0000000000ff0000ll) << 24)
#define BYTE7_64(b) ((b & 0x000000000000ff00ll) << 40)
#define BYTE8_64(b) ((b & 0x00000000000000ffll) << 56)
#define MONGO_64(b) (BYTE8_64(b) | BYTE7_64(b) | BYTE6_64(b) | BYTE5_64(b) | BYTE4_64(b) | BYTE3_64(b) | BYTE2_64(b) | BYTE1_64(b))

#else
#define MONGO_32(b) (b)
#define MONGO_64(b) (b)
#endif

#endif

Answer 1

Your errors come because the compiler doesn’t know what “buffer” means. It’s defined in php_mongo.h. This implies that you’ve set-up your project wrong and tried to compile bson.h stand-alone.

PHP extensions are not build with Visual Studio projects but through a specially written build system. You need to follow the instructions at https://wiki.php.net/internals/windows/stepbystepbuild