Compile-time errors

• With errors detected by the compiler always start with the first and work through them in order, recompiling each time. You may find that solving the first error will eliminate the rest as sometimes a simple error at the beginning of a program will cause many cascading errors later on.

• If the compiler detects an error then look at the details it gives about which line in the code the error was found and what the error was. Look carefully at the line of code in your source file -- you may simply have spelled something wrong or omitted a semicolon. Forgetting a semicolon will tend to result in an error message that refers to the following line (as it is the following line that then fails to make sense to the compiler), so you should also check the lines around the one mentioned by the compiler.

• If the compiler gives an error ``variable not defined'' or ``cannot resolve symbol'' when you are using some Java feature that you are sure you have spelled correctly, then the problem could be that you have not got the necessary import statement at the start of the file.