Can't find my syntax error, VC++ says there's one

Question

I'm running into a bit of a problem here, I'm messing around with machine code and function pointers, and there's a bit of my code that VC++ simply refuses to compile.

This compiles and runs exactly as expected:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char tarr[] = {0xb8, 222, 0, 0, 0, 0xc3};

    int (*testfn)() = tarr;

    printf("%d", testfn()); // prints 222

    getchar();
}

However, Visual C++ Express will not compile the following, giving this error: error C2143: syntax error : missing ';' before 'type'

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char* tarr = (char*) malloc(1000);
    tarr[0] = 0xb8;
    tarr[1] = 222;
    tarr[2] = 0;
    tarr[3] = 0;
    tarr[4] = 0;
    tarr[5] = 0xc3;

    int (*testfn)() = tarr; // syntax error here

    printf("%d", testfn());

    getchar();
}

I've looked at the supposedly faulty code and I cannot see anything wrong with it. What's going on? Is there something I'm missing?

Answer 1

The code compiles with warnings in GCC and fails to compile with G++. You're missing a cast on that line. You're also missing a return value from main.

    int (*testfn)() = (int (*)()) tarr; // no more syntax error?

Answer 2

Is this C code? If so, and it is not C99 then you need to move the declaration of testfd to before the assignments to tarr[X].