[Bug c++/17314] bad error

["igodard at pacbell dot net" <gcc-bugzilla at gcc dot gnu dot org>]

------- Additional Comments From igodard at pacbell dot net  2004-09-07 08:15 -------
One last try: Comeau says that it is inaccessible, which while not all that 
informative is correct as far as it goes. gcc says that it is "protected", which is *actively misleading*; the error is reported for a reference in a derived class which by the definition of "protected" should be able to reference any protected name in a base class.

Bottom line: I spent half a day on a wild goose chase prompted by this message, which sent me off in completely the wrong direction from the actual problem. I didn't really catch on until I ran a reduced case past Comeau. Not everyone is intimately familiar with the visibility semantics of virtual base classes (they are a rarely used feature) and I found no mention of the difference in default visibility between virtual and non-virtual base inheritance in several popular reference books, D&E, and The C++ Language (Stroustrup).

If you are producing a compiler intended solely for language mavens like yourselves, then leave this message; it does report an error after all. But if you want your compiler to be used by real people, and perhaps more importantly if you want your compiler to encourage people to actually use the C++ language as opposed to run C through a C++ compiler, then this message is way misleading and should be changed.

</FLAME>  I won't reopen again.

Ivan

-- 
           What    |Removed                     |Added
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             Status|RESOLVED                    |UNCONFIRMED
         Resolution|INVALID                     |


http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17314