Mystified by "error: expected unqualified-id before 'using'"?

[zerobandwidth]

So, I feel dumb for beating my head against a wall for half an hour on this, so I figured I'd share my ordeal with others to save them some time.

I had a class definition in a header file, and then implemented that class in a source file.

Header:

#include <blahblahblah>
using namespace std ;

class Foo
{
  /* class def */
}

Source:

#include <blahblahblah>
#include "Foo.h"
using namespace std ;

/* class implementation */

This resulted in several failed make attempts with the following message:

error: expected unqualified-id before 'using'

See my mistake yet?

I think this was probably born from my mostly-Java origins, but my error actually resides in the header, not the source.

I left the semicolon off the end of the class definition.

LFMF

[MiiNiPaa]

You need semicolon after class definition. Also: do not use "using" in headers. It can change behavior of your program and break other headers authors of which did not expect spanish inquizition wild using declaration.