[Lazarus] Misleading error message

[Mattias Gaertner]

On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:33:30 -0500
brian <brian at meadows.pair.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Since it seems I have some kind of compatibility problem preventing my 
> using mantis, I'm going to describe what seems at least a VERY 
> misleading error message, if not actually a bug. Hopefully someone 
> associated with the software will notice it.
> 
> I'm using Lazarus 64-bit v 0.9.28.2-0 beta (so it says) and FPC 2.2.4 
> under Kubuntu 9.1, BTW. I know it's old, but that's apparently the 
> latest that has been packaged for 64-bit Kubuntu.
> 
> I should also say that I started with computers in the mid-1970s, so I 
> have some archaic ways of doing things. :) One of those is putting an 
> include file with some global definitions in ALL of my source units, 
> and I include it with an absolute path, 
> /home/brian/sources/Lazarus/defines.inc to be exact.
> 
> I changed a $define in there a few days ago, and when I next compiled 
> the project, I got a dialog pop up stating that the include file 
> couldn't be found. Huh? *Of course* it was there...
> 
> After much head-scratching, I looked carefully through the file, and
> found that I must have used the scroll wheel on my mouse, because 
> pasted in the middle of the include file was a chunk of obviously 
> invalid text (the scroll wheel acts as the center button, and if I 
> press rather than scroll, it does a 'paste').
> 
> I deleted the text, and all was back to normal, but that's the 
> problem. An obvious syntax error in an include file, instead of 
> generating an error, pops up a dialog saying that there's no such 
> include file. In my case, it looked to the compiler like an identifier 
> when 'interface' was expected. It would be an improvement to have no 
> pop-up dialog at all, then I would have looked at the underlying 
> messages, and found the syntax error.

Please create a FPC bug report and add a small example. This way it
will be fixed soon.

Mattias