Noexcept is a C++11 feature, so it has to be enabled by -std=c++11 or -std=gnu++11 (or, on some older gcc verions, -std=c++0x/gnu++0x) $ cat noex.cc void fn() noexcept(false); $ g++ -c noex.cc noex.cc:1:11: error: expected initializer before ‘noexcept’ void fn() noexcept(false); ^ $ g++ -std=c++11 -c noex.cc $ Jeff