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