[comp.lang.objective-c] Objective-C and compilation errors messages

bordes@hpgnd.HP.COM (Olivier BORDES) (10/26/90)

I am tired of these stupid (to not say more) error messages provided
by the objective-C compiler !

I enjoyed messages like:

	"Illegal syntax at or near @implementation" 
	
when the error is in fact located far before the '@implementation' keyword
(located in one of the imported files imported at the beginning of the file).

or message like ...
	"expected ) found toto."

... this message appears after a declaration like:
	toto * pointer;
and means that the type toto has not been declared before !
Could'nt the compiler say that the type 'toto' has not been defined
before ?

Even now, with two years pratice of Objective-C, I am tired of
the incoherence of these error messages.
Please Stepstone, do something for error messages in your compiler !!!



Olivier_Bordes@hpgnd.hp.com             (Hewlett-Packard Grenoble)

~

UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) (10/30/90)

In article <20850002@hpgnd.HP.COM>, bordes@hpgnd.HP.COM (Olivier BORDES) says:

>or message like ...
>        "expected ) found toto."

>... this message appears after a declaration like:
>        toto * pointer;
>and means that the type toto has not been declared before !
>Could'nt the compiler say that the type 'toto' has not been defined
>before ?


The "right" way to handle this is for the ID of the error message to
be listed in an error message manual.  There should be a discussion, perhaps
even a fairly long one, of all of the ways that programmers screw up
that produce that particular message.

Better yet, this "manual" that explains all the ways to produce a
particular message should be online.

                                    lee