VC++ compiler doesnt see any of my namespacec or classes - c++

Question

I'm working on a project in c++ and I stuck with no idea what is wrong. I've writen 4 classes and everything looked fine during work (under visual studio 2010). VS 'saw' all the definition, i could use auto-fill and sudgestions, but when I tried to compile the project it sudennly went blind. It's like I didnt include headers or something (which I did). The strange thing is there is no problem with working with those classes on VS (i can ctrl+space for hint, list of attributes and methods and all that stuff) but when i try to compile it says "ClassName" is not a type.
Quick sample of problem below:
ProButton.cpp:
#include "ProButton.h"
using namespace pGUI;
ProButton::ProButton( ... )
: ProControl( ... )
{
...
}
ProButton.h:
#ifndef __PRO_BUTTON__
#define __PRO_BUTTON__
#include <string>
#include "ProControl.h"
namespace pGUI
{
class ProButton :
public pGUI::ProControl
{
public:
//attributes
...
public:
//methods
...
};
}
#endif
but compiler says:
Error 291 error C2653: 'ProButton' : is not a class or namespace name
for this line in ProButton.cpp: ProButton::ProButton( ... )
It also says:
Error 23 error C2039: 'ProControl' : is not a member of 'pGUI'
Error 24 error C2504: 'ProControl' : base class undefined
and all similar errors for whole project. I have no idea what is wrong. Looks like my VS broke :D
Of course those (...) means there is code there, just not that important for now. I can upload all solution somewhere fi it will help.
edit//
About namespaces, all header files (classes declaration) are defined in namespace with:
namespace pGUI{
class ProClass
{
};
}
all definitions for these classes (in ProClass.cpp) are using:
using namespace pGUI;
at the beginning.
I think the problem is with order of including files.
Im not sure how this is supposed to be done. So far i have 4 classes that:
class ProGUI:
has a pointer to ProContainer
includes: ProContainer and ProControl
class ProContainer:
has pointers to: ProGUI and ProControl
class ProControl:
has a pointer to ProContainer
includes ProButton
is a base class for ProButton
class ProButton:
is a sub-class of ProControl
Those classes also uses irrlicht library and I'm not sure where to include it.
I had it included in my main file just before #include "ProGUI.h". This is also the only include in main. ProGUI.h .
//EDIT 2 -> solved
It was a problem with includes. I needed to rethink my inclusion order and add some forward declarations. Anyway that all seemed strange and took me a lot of time to figure i out. Thx for help. :)

Answer 1

It seems that you are using following statement:
using namespace pGUI;
Just before the class declaration:
class ProControl
{
};
Instead of using following approach:
namespace pGUI
{
class ProControl
{
};
}
The using namespace, as it says uses a namespace. You need to explicitly put something a namespace using namespace keyword followed by braces!

Answer 2

using namespace pGUI informs the compiler that it should look in the pGUI namespace to resolve existing names.
To declare or implement something in a namespace you need to be more specific. with either:
namespace pGUI
{
ProButton::ProButton( ... ) : ProControl( ... )
{
...
}
}
or:
pGUI::ProButton::ProButton( ... ) : ProControl( ... )
{
....
}
Personally, I consider any use of using namespace to be a lazy programmer hack that completely defeats the point of namespaces. But I digress. :)