Specific issues with error messages

[haxscramper]

Discussion about specific error messages that might be reworded, improved and otherwise changed.

If you have an idea about how a particular error message should be changed, reworded, please write a comment about it in this thread.

Related discussions, RFCs

• Ideas to make the compiler output more useful #91
• Compiler error suggestions nim-lang/RFCs#323
• Type mismatch errors nim-lang/RFCs#325
• Structured compilation errors nim-lang/RFCs#324 is related, but had already been implemented in the Structured reports #94

Related pull requests

• Initial implementation of the newstyle error reporting #332

If you want compilation diagnostic to resemble something from the different compiler, or you have ideas about possible output formatting, please do add them in your comments.

If you randomly stumble upon "this is absolutely fucking unreadable" error, you can post the error message itself with commentary. I'm talking about gems like

, where you barely have three lines worth of actually useful information, all lost in a sea of monochrome white text.

[haxscramper]

Generic instantiation context should show name or value of the parameter, instead of simply listing procedure name. It is hard to debug instantiation issues where all you have is a name of the procedure, without any idea about what parameter were supplied.

C++ compiler does provide diagnostics like this:

In file included from /usr/include/c++/4.7/utility:72:0,
             from test.cpp:2:
/usr/include/c++/4.7/bits/stl_pair.h: In instantiation of ‘std::pair<_T1, _T2>&  
std::pair<_T1, _T2>::operator=(std::pair<_U1, _U2>&&) [with _U1 = int; _U2 = char; _T1 = const int; _T2 = char; std::pair<_T1, _T2> = std::pair<const int, char>]’:
map1.hpp:30:5:   required from ‘cs540::Node<Key, Value>::Node(std::pair<const Key, 
Value>, cs540::Node<Key, Value>*, cs540::Node<Key, Value>*) [with Key = int; Value = char; cs540::Node<Key, Value> = cs540::Node<int, char>]’
map1.hpp:121:7:   required from ‘void cs540::Map<Key, Value>::insert_node(cs540::Node<Key, Value>*, std::pair<const Key, Value>) [with Key = int; Value = char]’
map1.hpp:433:5:   required from ‘cs540::Map<Key, Value>::Iterator cs540::Map<Key, Value>::insert(const std::pair<const Key, Value>&) [with Key = int; Value = char]’
test.cpp:12:23:   required from here

[haxscramper]

"Duplicate case label", "wrong order in enums" should provide an elaboration about which element is duplicate or has a wrong order.

[haxscramper]

a.b= with missing field should show the available field names and provide possible mismatch candidates. attempting to call undeclared routine: 'fld=' is highly unreadable and confusing.