Misleading error when incorrectly initializing a struct using Monster() instead of Monster{...}

[fabiand]

struct Monster {
 damage: int
}

impl Monster {
 fn attack(&self) -> int {
  self.damage // Why do I have to use a return here?
 }
}

fn main()
{
 let m = Monster();
 m.attack();
}


$ rust run monster.rs                     
monster.rs:14:9: 14:16 error: unresolved name: `Monster`.           <---- This error does not help to solve the problem
monster.rs:14  let m = Monster();
                       ^~~~~~~
error: aborting due to previous error

[fabiand]

I called Monster() instead of Monster{...} - the error which was raised did not help me to find the problem ... I'd have expected sth like "Intialize structs using Monster{...}" or so ... but b/c of that error I looked for hidden utf8 chars :)

[Thiez]

'Monster' could also be a function name, so the compiler can't tell what it should do. Having said that, according to our style guide functions and methods should be lower case, so perhaps the compiler could give a more helpful message in this case. For example by assuming that you meant to initialize a struct when it encounters a function call that starts with a capital letter and is not a function, but does match the name of a struct.

[emberian]

On incoming I get:

/home/cmr/entropy/res.rs:5:12: 5:22 error: expected function but found `Monster`
/home/cmr/entropy/res.rs:5     let m = Monster();
                                       ^~~~~~~~~~

[catamorphism]

@Thiez We can actually do better, since in resolve, the compiler already knows what names correspond to structs when it's printing out an error message. I'm about to submit a pull request to improve the error message.