Xref: utzoo comp.bugs.sys5:1249 comp.sys.att:9305
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sdrc!scjones
From: scjones@sdrc.UUCP (Larry Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.sys5,comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: strange compiler bug
Keywords: compiler, i386
Message-ID: <1282@sdrc.UUCP>
Date: 11 Apr 90 21:57:27 GMT
References: <1064@tuewsd.lso.win.tue.nl>
Followup-To: comp.bugs.sys5
Organization: SDRC, Cincinnati
Lines: 31

In article <1064@tuewsd.lso.win.tue.nl>, wsinpdb@lso.win.tue.nl (Paul de Bra) writes:
> When compiling metafont on a 386, using the AT&T (development system 4.1.6)
> c-compiler, I get bogus errors like this:
> 
> "mf2.c", line 1811: illegal character: 043 (octal)
> "mf2.c", line 1811: cannot recover from earlier errors: goodbye!
> 
> I compiled the stuff with gcc without getting any errors.
> Also, when I say
> 
> cc -P -I.. mf2.c; cc -O -I.. -c mf2.i
> 
> I get no errors, so just by splitting the compilation in 2 supposedly
> equivalent parts the errors go away.

Well, 043 is '#', so it would seem that you have some
preprocessor directives that aren't getting interpreted by the
preprocessor but are instead making their way into the compiler
which is choking on them.  The place that I've seen this most
often is when the '#' isn't in column 1.  Since the problem goes
away when you run the file through the preprocessor twice (the
net result of your double cc), I would guess that there is a
comment before the '#' which gets removed by the first cpp so
that the '#' is in column 1 for the second pass.
----
Larry Jones                         UUCP: uunet!sdrc!scjones
SDRC                                      scjones@SDRC.UU.NET
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