On 27 September 2010 09:04, VAUGHAN Jay (D3S) <jay.vaughan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> So how is someone to determine what a particular message means when it >> is not apparent from the message itself ? Ask here each time ? > > Ask, or learn more about the problem until you understand what the message means. There > are very terse messages in gcc, but after using it for ~20 years, I can honestly say that > there hasn't been a single message that was ever totally unclear .. certainly I have > learned a lot about code by trying to dig deep and understand the messages. I disagree with this and agree with Ian above. There are some bad diagnostics in GCC, so if you find a message perplexing and you cannot find the answer in the C/C++ FAQs, then you should file a bug report. Patches and suggestions are always welcome. Also, answering the same questions over and over again leads to bad answers, and long threads. See http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/how-to-post.html#faq-5.6 We will be better off documenting GCC diagnostic messages little by little in the wiki http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki and pointing to it every time someone asks something that is already answered there. So yes, ask. And yes, answer. But once answered, document it in the wiki and never answer it again, just point to the answer. Cheers, Manuel.
