syntax error near unexpected token '(' in C

Question

I'm getting a confusing error message. I'm running MinGW on Windows XP 32-bit. When I attempt to compile the following code, I get an error message "./hello.c: line 4: Syntax error near unexpected token '('". Line 4 is at int main(...), I can't figure out what unexpected token is "near '('". I've tried using int main(void), but I get the same message. However, if I compile it without the "char string..." and "data = fputs(...)" and have it read from a given text file, it compiles without issue.

What I'm trying to accomplish is to read from a file where the filename is given by an external source, i.e. php. Eventually I'm going to be working this into an Apache module with a parser that I've made, hence the call from php, but I wanted to fool around and build some template code to work with before I got to that part.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main (void)
{
    FILE *fp;
    //char string = "JD";    commented out
    char data;
    //printf("Type in your filename:   "); also commented out
    //scanf("%s", &argv);  also commented out

    if(argc >= 2)
    {
        fp = fopen("sample.txt", "r"); //switched to reading a given file
    }
    while((data = getchar()) != EOF)
    {
        fgets(data, sizeof(data), fp);
        // data = fputs(string, fp);
    }

    if (fp==NULL) /* error opening file returns NULL */
    {
        printf("Could not open player file!\n"); /* error message */
        return 1; /* exit with failure */
    }
    /* while we're not at end of file */
    while (fgets(data, sizeof(string), fp) != NULL)
    {
        printf(data); /* print the string */
    }

    fclose(fp); /* close the file */
    return 0; /* success */
}

Okay, I tried writing a simple "Hello World" program, but I'm still getting the same error message with it which makes me think the error message isn't being caused by my code at all.

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) //still getting a syntax error before unexpected token '('
{
    printf("Hello, world!");
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

Your line

int main (int argc, char *argv)

is wrong. It must be

int main (int argc, char *argv[])

OR

int main (int argc, char **argv) //less common, though

---

And also your line

char string = "JD";

should be

const char *string = "JD";

Also, I don't get

scanf("%s", &argv);

why would you read something INTO argv?