Is this a semantic error or the syntax error ?

Question

#include "stdio.h"

int main( )
{


    int x, y;

    y=x(5);
    return 0;
}

MSVC 2010 compiler gives the following error:

Error   1   error C2064: term does not evaluate to a function taking 1 arguments    c:\users\ae\documents\visual studio 2010\projects\text\text\text.cpp    13

2   IntelliSense: expression must have (pointer-to-) function type  c:\users\ae\documents\visual studio 2010\projects\text\text\text.cpp    13

Is this a semantic error or the syntax error ?

Answer 1

Semantic. It would be legit c syntax if x was a function that took 1 argument -- but it's just an int.

It'd be a syntax error if you did this:

int x, y;

y=x((5;
return 0;

Answer 2

I'd say it's a semantic error, specifically, a type error. The token sequence y = x(5) is well formed, and the x(5) part is parsed as a function call expression. The error is that x does not evaluate to a function pointer, but rather to an int.