Strange behaviour of CC compiler with templates

Question

Hello!
I have noticed a strange behaviour of CC compiler.
The followint test-case compiles normally:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <complex>
using namespace std;
extern "C++" {
template <class FLOAT> complex<FLOAT>
cos (const complex<FLOAT>& x)
return complex<FLOAT> (cos (real (x)) * cosh (imag (x)),
- sin (real (x)) * sinh (imag (x)));
int main(){
return 0;
But if you commenty string
"using namespace std;" it gives error:
/opt/ss11/SUNWspro/bin/CC test.cc
"test.cc", line 8: Error: Templates can only declare classes or functions.
"test.cc", line 14: Error: A declaration was expected instead of "}".
2 Error(s) detected.
make: *** [test.o] Error 2
----

Answer 1

Class 'complex' is defined in the 'std' namespace. When you comment out 'using namespace std' compiler can't find definition of 'complex' and so treats function declaration as invalid construction. But I agree the error message is not quite clear.