> C30 is like this as well. It knows there is a syntax error in that it has 
> reached something without finding a closing bracket, why does it need to use 
> a catch-all error message??? 

- because the C syntax is so 'dense' that in most cases there is more 
than one possible correct continuation (and probably at more than one 
point in the line)
- because in the presence of macro's it makes no sense to indicate the 
position in the line which caused the error
- because of the above most C parser (scanner/tokenizer/lexer) are 
bottom-up parsers, optimized for speed, not for accurate error reporting
- most C compilers seem to think it is more important to continue 
compiling in order to report more errors than to report errors accurately

Back in my Jal days some people critized me for writing my own top-down 
parser. Like most compilers for Algol-type languages it reported the 
first error (and only the first), but fairly accurately, bot in position 
and in the kind of error.

-- 

Wouter van Ooijen

-- -------------------------------------------
Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl
consultancy, development, PICmicro products
docent Hogeschool van Utrecht: www.voti.nl/hvu

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