Message error strings

I want to have strings, that represents messages, (error messages, or simple messages) accesing it in a way like this: error.MESSAGE_NOFILE that will be equal to "There is no file." I have tried with a struct called error, with static const char*: struct error { static const char *MESSAGE_NOFILE = "There is no file."; ... }; but with this I get errors, anyone knows how I can do this ? I prefer not to create and object of the struct/class, and later accesing it, I want something like java constants ( Integer.ANY_CONSTANT)