[CLUE-Tech] GCC: Bogus [?] parsing errors

[Matt Gushee]

Something strange happened the other night when I tried to compile
Rosegarden (a cool music application that depends on KDE). The build
kept failing with messages reporting syntax errors. I know I should have
saved the exact error messages, but it was late at night, and my memory
is reasonably clear: first the compiler choked on a (supposedly) extra
semicolon in one of the Rosegarden files. I looked at the file and found
the semicolon was the last significant character (i.e. non-whitespace,
non-comment) in the file, so I commented it out and ran make again. Same
thing happened again a little later. Again, commented out the "extra"
semicolon. But finally the build failed again, and this time the message
said "multiple types in one declaration"--in kdebug.h, which is one of
the KDE header files.

So of course I did a few Google variations on the error messages, and
didn't get anything that was clearly relevant--and most of the hits were
several years old anyway.

Now, the obvious explanation for all this is that the files in question
actually have errors in them--but I'm suspicious. I don't know if any
Linux music application can be called "mainstream," but Rosegarden is
about as close to it as they come, and KDE--this is a released version
(3.3.1), and I have a hard time believing the KDE team would release
code with such an obvious error.

So maybe there's something wrong with my g++ (v3.4.2)? Or maybe there's
an issue with deprecated syntax, that could be worked around with
compiler options? Can anybody suggest how to investigate this (other
than learning all about C++ ;-).

-- 
Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
Haven Rock Press            Horses bear manure through
Englewood, Colorado, USA        its fields;   
books at havenrock.com         When a nation ignores the Way,
                            Horses bear soldiers through
                                its streets.
                                
                            --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)