I have set up a project in Visual Studio to create a .dll. I have included an external library in the project which uses the keyword "interface". This is giving me the following error:
error C2146: syntax error : missing ';' before identifier 'INuiAudioBeam'
These are the lines of code where the error occurs:
#ifndef __INuiAudioBeam_FWD_DEFINED__
#define __INuiAudioBeam_FWD_DEFINED__
typedef interface INuiAudioBeam INuiAudioBeam; //Error on this line
#endif
The above code is part of a header file in the external library I have included. The project builds successfully without any errors when compiling without including the headers for the library (Note: Linking the library does not cause any problems).
What is the solution to this? Is it because I have an external library I'm using to create my dll? Should I create a .lib instead of a dll?
If anyone else searches this, the problem is most likely
#define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
Before
#include <windows.h>
Remove the define, make sure your including windows.h, and that should define interface keyword for you
You can get C2146 with indictment of the interface keyword. It may be confusing as to how a keyword may be undefined, especially that in other compilation units or projects that use the same header file - the inclusion of which brought about the problem - all goes smooth. However, the apparent keyword "interface" is still a compiler #define directive. It just happens to be buried inside a header file that a few developers have reasons to inspect: the <objbase.h>
. There it is defined in two steps:
#define __STRUCT__ struct
#define interface __STRUCT__
Since the <objbase.h>
is included by multiple other header files - such as ole2.h, oleauto.h, and a slew of ATL headers - you may be surprised with this error when none of those headers were included in the current compilation unit.