Question

May I have a question as “Why following code compile fail with error C2371 at line 04” ?

It succeeded on VS6 but failed on VS2008.

I’ve tried to comment out line 05, still have this compile error.

01   typedef struct tagAAA
02   {
03       unsigned char      a;
04   } AAA;

05   typedef AAA FAR* LPAAA;

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Presumably, the compiler gave an error message as well as a code, which told you what the problem is. Googling the code reveals:

'identifier' : redefinition; different basic types

You say that the error is on line 4; in that case, presumably the identifier is AAA, and you’ve already declared something else called AAA.

As to why it succeeds on a 15-year-old pre-standard compiler, you’ll have to ask a historian.

Also, get rid of that typedef struct nonsense; it’s a bad idea in C, and completely pointless in C++. And unless you need to support 16-bit MS-DOS, get rid of that FAR* nonsense too; you just need

struct AAA {
    unsigned char a;
};