error C2601: 'main' : local function definitions are illegall - MS VS 2013 Compiler

I'm writing a small program in C++. When I try to compile it using MS VS 2013 Compiler I get an error: "C2601: 'main' : local function definitions are illegall". What does it mean? My code is:

#include <iostream> int n; int pomocniczaLiczba; using namespace std; int ciong(int n){ switch (n) { case 1: return 1; break; case 2: return 2; break; default: pomocniczaLiczba = ciong(n - 2) + ciong(n - 1) * ciong(n - 1); return pomocniczaLiczba; break; } int main() { cin >> n; cout >> ciong(n); return 0; } } 

2 Answers

Your bracketing is broken. The net result is that you are attempting to define your main function inside ciong. And C++ does not support nested function definitions. Hence the compiler error.

The code should be:

#include "stdafx.h" #include <iostream> using namespace std; int ciong(int n) { switch (n) { case 1: return 1; break; case 2: return 2; break; default: int pomocniczaLiczba = ciong(n - 2) + ciong(n - 1) * ciong(n - 1); return pomocniczaLiczba; break; } } // <----- Oops, this was missing in your code int main() { int n; cin >> n; cout << ciong(n) << endl; return 0; } 

And there are other bugs. For example, you meant cout << ciong(n).

Using Visual Studio 2013 C++, I got compilation errors that I couldn't explain.

The compilation errors were:

*main.cpp(325): error C2601: 'FLAG' : local function definitions are illegal

main.cpp(323): this line contains a '{' which has not yet been matched

main.cpp(326): fatal error C1075: end of file found before the left brace '{' at 'main.cpp(323)' was matched*

But there was nothing wrong with my code. I counted all brackets and the number matched. There weren't any function inside another function.

I solved it by removing all "//" comments from the source code. It seems that the reason for that is bad line formatting which causes the compiler to miss a line break, so the line after a comment is treated as a comment as well.

For example:

// This is a comment This_is_a_line; 

is treated as:

// This is a comment This_is_a_line; 

There are many posts of the net about similar problems and some even suggested that they could be caused by a memory (RAM) fault on the machine, so before you replace your RAM, just remove the comments and see...

• Michael Haephrati מיכאל האפרתי