my.cnf error's

[George Thompson]

hey guys... so ive been fighting a problem lately, no matter what i put in my.cnf file, it fails, i keep getting the same error:

error: Found option without preceding group in config file: /etc/my.cnf at line: 1
Fatal error in defaults handling. Program aborted

i get the error no matter what, if there is no file, error, even with the origenal my.cnf file on the server i get the same error, and if i delete it all down to the basic of basic mysql script(found on the mysql website) i still get the error... the server seems to run, but all on defaults. any ideas? thanks.. here is the my.cnf file i used last, i got it from mysql.com

[client]
port=3306
socket=/tmp/mysql.sock

[mysqld]
port=3306
socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
key_buffer_size=16M
max_allowed_packet=8M

[mysqldump]
quick

thanks again... gt