Difference between intellisense and compiler in VS.NET C++ 2010

Question

Is the following legal C++ code:

class C 
{
     static public  int x;
};

It compiles OK in Visual Studio 2008 C++ and Visual Studio 2010 C++ (beta 2). But the static member x does not end up being public.

In Visual Studio 2010 beta 2 the experience is even stranger. Intellisense reports an error "expected an identifier", but the compiler does not. Visual Studio 2008 does not give any error.

So the questions are:

Is this legal C++ code? What does it mean?

Answer 1

This is not legal C++. It is a legal C#, so that's why MS IDE bugged out.

Correct:

public: static int x;

Answer 2

No it is not legal C++

It may be legal C# (but you would need to check with a C# person).

Answer 3

It's not legal C++ code.

The 'public' isn't allowed in variable declarations. What you're seeing however is that the compiler 'works' because it also compiles as CLI (.NET code) and there it's allowed and legal.