Strange characters in terminal during compile error

Question

(This is not a question about a compile error, but about the Linux terminal setting.)

During any compile error, the error statement doesn't properly display code fragments:

In member function â:
error: â was not declared in this scope

Is there a setting to get my terminal to properly show:

In member function `foo()':
error: `endl' was not declared in this scope

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More info: This shows-up in Emacs compile mode correctly, but even saving that buffer to a temporary file and reading it on the command-line produces the above characters. Reading that file in Vim shows that the strange characters represent more than one column of text.

Answer 1

I think you should first check the locale settings with:

locale

If it is not aligned with the character set of the file then you might be getting errors, as such.

file yoursrcfile

should provide you with the necessary information.

There is the case also that your compiler is running with a different locale. You can workaround this by setting

export LC_ALL=en_US

for your bash session. This can be placed in front of the compilation command as well. e.g.

LC_ALL=en_US gcc -o outfile srcfile.c

But the effect in that case will be only on the subsequent command.

Another case is that probably your source code may have been edited in windows maybe? Anyhow it might contain some weird characters for some reason.

You should check it in vim by enabling to show all characters

:set invlist

Hope this helps!