What does this error mean: "error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before 'type_name'"?

Solution 1:

The compiler doesn't know that spe_context_ptr_t is a type. Check that the appropriate typedef is in scope when this code is compiled. You may have forgotten to include the appropriate header file.

Solution 2:

I had the same error message but the solution is different.

The compiler parses the file from top to bottom.

Make sure a struct is defined BEFORE using it into another:

typedef struct
{
    char name[50];
    wheel_t wheels[4]; //wrong, wheel_t is not defined yet
} car_t;

typedef struct
{
    int weight;
} wheel_t;

Solution 3:

For iPhone cocoa-touch projects:

I had this problem and thanks to Eric Farraro's comment, I was able to get it resolved. I was importing a class WSHelper.h in many of my other classes. But I also was importing some of those same classes in my WSHelper.h (circular like Eric said). So, to fix this I moved the imports from my WSHelper.h file to my WSHelper.m file as they weren't really needed in the .h file anyway.