c++ local function definitions are illegal

[MrHenry007]

Hello!
I'm fairly new to c++ but I have been following tutorials and have created functions before, but not one using a string. I can't work out what the problem is here.

The function is supposed to accept a file location, open the file, search for a phrase, and return a result if the certain phrase is found, otherwise return nothing. Then the result is written to a text file later in the program.

Im using visual c++ 2008 and it is currently a console application, which i plan to change once i can get the function working.

Here is my code:

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;


int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{

string passtocheckpriorityfunction;
string priorityresult;

string checkpriority (string filenameandpath){ // my function

string line;

ifstream myinputfile (filenameandpath);

if (myinputfile.is_open())
{
while (! myinputfile.eof())
{
getline (myinputfile,line);

if (line == "Importance: High"){
return << "Importance: 1.\n";
}
}
myinputfile.close();
}
}


cout << "Enter the file path and name";
cin >> passtocheckpriorityfunction;

priorityresult = checkpriority(passtocheckpriorityfunction)

ofstream myoutputfile ("result.txt");
myoutputfile << priorityresult;
myoutputfile.close();


return 0;
}


And here is my long list of errors:
------ Build started: Project: FunctionTest, Configuration: Debug Win32 ------
Compiling...
FunctionTest.cpp
c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\visual studio 2008\projects\functiontest\functiontest.cpp(17) : error C2601: 'checkpriority' : local function definitions are illegal
c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\visual studio 2008\projects\functiontest\functiontest.cpp(12): this line contains a '{' which has not yet been matched
c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\visual studio 2008\projects\functiontest\functiontest.cpp(43) : error C2146: syntax error : missing ';' before identifier 'ofstream'
c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\visual studio 2008\projects\functiontest\functiontest.cpp(43) : error C2146: syntax error : missing ';' before identifier 'myoutputfile'
c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\visual studio 2008\projects\functiontest\functiontest.cpp(43) : error C2275: 'std::ofstream' : illegal use of this type as an expression
c:\program files\microsoft visual studio 9.0\vc\include\iosfwd(720) : see declaration of 'std::ofstream'
c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\visual studio 2008\projects\functiontest\functiontest.cpp(43) : error C3861: 'myoutputfile': identifier not found
c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\visual studio 2008\projects\functiontest\functiontest.cpp(44) : error C2065: 'myoutputfile' : undeclared identifier
c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\visual studio 2008\projects\functiontest\functiontest.cpp(45) : error C2065: 'myoutputfile' : undeclared identifier
c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\visual studio 2008\projects\functiontest\functiontest.cpp(45) : error C2228: left of '.close' must have class/struct/union
type is ''unknown-type''
c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\visual studio 2008\projects\functiontest\functiontest.cpp(21) : error C2664: 'std::basic_ifstream<_Elem,_Traits>::basic_ifstrea m(const char *,std::ios_base::openmode,int)' : cannot convert parameter 1 from 'std::string' to 'const char *'
with
[
_Elem=char,
_Traits=std::char_traits<char>
]
No user-defined-conversion operator available that can perform this conversion, or the operator cannot be called
c:\documents and settings\me\my documents\visual studio 2008\projects\functiontest\functiontest.cpp(30) : error C2059: syntax error : '<<'
Build log was saved at "file://c:\Documents and Settings\me\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\FunctionTest\Debug\BuildLog.htm"
FunctionTest - 10 error(s), 0 warning(s)
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

[donbock]

Was it your intention to define the checkpriority function right in the middle of the _tmain function? I know you can't do that in C. C++ supports all kinds of magic, so maybe you can do it there.

[weaknessforcats]

I see you are using an _tmain() and that tells me you need to support both ASCII and Unicode version of your program.

That means you can't use the C++ string since that is ASCII only. On the Unicode side it is wstring. Ditto for the ASCII cout that is the equivalent of the Unicode wcout, etcc...

You will need a macro:
#ifdef UNICODE
typedef wstring String;
typedef wostream Output; //this replaces wcout
#else
typedef string String;
typedef ostream Output; //this replaces cout
#endif

Also, you cannot use ASCII strings directly:

if (line == "Importance: High"){

but instead need to:

Output line;
//etc..
if (line == Output("Importance: High")){

[MrHenry]

Hello, thank you for the reply. I went with tmain() because that is what visual studio automatically gave me. Yes donbock , code wasn't meant to be jumbled like that.

i've worked on my code abit and i've managed to fix the mentioned problem, but i've run into a new problem where my program crashes on "if (line == "Importance: High"){", which I should probably start a new thread for since it's a strange problem.