I am refreshing my self on C++ (have not did it since school) and I wrote a simple program just to mess around. My problem is when I compile the program it chokes stating "error: expected initializer before 'stringThing'" is there a reason why this is doing this? I know this may be a noob question so I checked stackoverflow and could not find any relevant questions that gave me a answer.
*I am using GNU GCC compiler
Code:
#include <iostream> using namespace std; void string stringThing (string shiftdir, string &teststring) { if (shiftdir == "right") { teststring = teststring >> " " >> "Bit Shifted right"; } else { teststring = teststring << " " << "Bit Shifted left"; } } int main() { string test; cout << stringThing("right", "I have done a ") << endl; return 0; } 2 Answers
The return type for stringThing must be either void or string, not both. You also must include <string>, if you want to use string.
Since you want to output the return value of stringThing() in main, I guess it should be
std::string stringThing (std::string shiftdir, const std::string &teststring) But then, you must also return a string from your function
if (shiftdir == "right") return teststring + " " + "Bit Shifted right"; else return teststring + " " + "Bit Shifted left"; for example.
Your parameter std::string &teststring won't work with your const char* argument. So either declare it as a copy by value string only, or better const string&.
Return type is … funky
What is:
void string stringThing (string shiftdir, string &teststring) ?
Get rid of the first string. Your function returns nothing.
So, simply:
void stringThing(string shiftdir, string &teststring) Inclusion missing
You will also need to #include <string> — in some scenarios you may get "lucky" and have it implicitly included by <iostream>, but don't rely on it.
