Treat `*x` as an unary operator to improve error messages for common C-programmer mistakes

1 files changed, 13 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/src/check_expr.cpp b/src/check_expr.cpp
index d1f393bef..f09c8fe3c 100644
--- a/src/check_expr.cpp
+++ b/src/check_expr.cpp
@@ -1800,6 +1800,19 @@ gb_internal bool check_unary_op(CheckerContext *c, Operand *o, Token op) {
 		}
 		break;
 
+	case Token_Mul:
+		{
+			ERROR_BLOCK();
+			error(op, "Operator '%.*s' is not a valid unary operator in Odin", LIT(op.string));
+			if (is_type_pointer(o->type)) {
+				str = expr_to_string(o->expr);
+				error_line("\tSuggestion: Did you mean '%s^'?\n", str);
+			} else if (is_type_multi_pointer(o->type)) {
+				str = expr_to_string(o->expr);
+				error_line("\tSuggestion: The value is a multi-pointer, did you mean '%s[0]'?\n", str);
+			}
+		}
+		break;
 	default:
 		error(op, "Unknown operator '%.*s'", LIT(op.string));
 		return false;