dereferencing pointer to imcomplete type ?

Original Post

Dec 28, 2002 at 2:47 PM

blah.

struct myImage
{
	Uint8 *pixels;
	Uint16 width, height;
};

// in main

struct myImage *smiley;
// load an image
// memory is allocated for pixels in struct myImage
free( smiley->pixels );

for some reason, the line "free( smiley->pixels );" is giving me a compiler error. (the error is the subject of this post). any suggestions how to fix this? - jeremiah

Zipster

511

Zipster

Dec 28, 2002 at 2:55 PM

quote:
(the error is the subject of this post)

I doubt the compiler would print "imcomplete", but oh well

An incomplete type means that the compiler can''t determine the size of it. This happens when you declare a structure pointer, but the compiler hasn''t seen the structure definition yet. You try to defer it, but the compiler has no knowledge of it, and it complains. Is your structure definition in the same translation unit as the free call?

keethrus

Author

keethrus

Dec 28, 2002 at 3:07 PM

thanx zipster, what you said helped. the structure was in a header file which wasnt included in the main file.

- jeremiah

inlovewithGod.com

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