Microsoft KB Archive/58559

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Article ID: 58559

Article Last Modified on 6/14/2006



APPLIES TO

  • Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 Service Pack 5
  • Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Visual C++ 2.0 Professional Edition
  • Microsoft Visual C++ 1.0 Professional Edition
  • Microsoft Visual C++ 1.51
  • Microsoft Visual C++ 1.5 Professional Edition
  • Microsoft Visual C++ 1.0 Professional Edition



This article was previously published under Q58559


SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft C, compiler errors C2143 and C2144 are defined as follows:

C2143: syntax error : missing 'token1' before 'token2'

C2144: syntax error : missing 'token' before type 'type'

CAUSE

You may receive this error message if your program places executable code before a data declaration, an acceptable practice in Kernighan-and-Ritchie C. This practice has been outlawed in later versions of the ANSI drafts.

This error message will normally occur if a required closing curly brace (}), right parenthesis [)], or semicolon (;) is missing.

RESOLUTION

Placing all data declarations before all executable code corrects the programming error.

void main( )
{
   int i;
   printf( "Hello world!\n" );
   {
      int j;
   }
}
                

Note In the C++ language, it is legal to declare data within a block of executable code.

MORE INFORMATION

Sample code

The following code demonstrates this error message.

/* Compile options needed: none
*/ 

#include <stdio.h>

void main(void)
{
   int i;
   printf("Hello World\n");
   int j;
}
                

Compiling this code with a version of Microsoft C prior to C/C++ 7.0 will return the following error message:

C2144: syntax error : missing ';' before type 'int'

C/C++ version 7.0 and Visual C/C++ issue the following error:

C2143: syntax error : missing ';' before 'type'


Additional query words: 8.00 8.00c 9.00 9.10

Keywords: kberrmsg kbtshoot kbvc152fix kbprb kbcompiler KB58559