errors using lapack C header in C++ with visual studio 2010

Question

Please help me! It takes me hours to look up in the internet and I haven't found a solution....

I am trying to use the call lapack function from C++ functions but I failed at the very beginning. Here is my code:

#include "stdafx.h"
#include "targetver.h"
extern "C" {
#include "lapacke.h"
}


int main{}
{
    return 0;
}

I know "lapacke.h" is a C header so I use the extern "C" clause. But while I try to compile this trivial function, I have the following error:

Error   1   error C2146: syntax error : missing ';' before identifier 'lapack_make_complex_float'   c:\users\svd_example1\example2\example2\lapacke.h   89  1   example2
Error   2   error C4430: missing type specifier - int assumed. Note: C++ does not support default-int   c:\users\svd_example1\example2\example2\lapacke.h   89  1   example2

Does anyone know what caused these errors?

Thank you very much!

Answer 1

The relevant portion of the header is:

/* Complex types are structures equivalent to the
* Fortran complex types COMPLEX(4) and COMPLEX(8).
*
* One can also redefine the types with his own types
* for example by including in the code definitions like
*
* #define lapack_complex_float std::complex<float>
* #define lapack_complex_double std::complex<double>
*
* or define these types in the command line:
*
* -Dlapack_complex_float="std::complex<float>"
* -Dlapack_complex_double="std::complex<double>"
*/

/* Complex type (single precision) */
#ifndef lapack_complex_float
#include <complex.h>
#define lapack_complex_float    float _Complex
#endif

/* ... */    

lapack_complex_float lapack_make_complex_float( float re, float im );

This uses C99 _Complex by default, which Visual C++ doesn't support. You can define those macros as suggested to use std::complex instead, which are supported by Visual C++:

#include <complex>
#define lapack_complex_float std::complex<float>
#define lapack_complex_double std::complex<double>
#include "lapacke.h"