C# Errors in Visual Studio that I don't understand

I’m taking a LinkedIn course called Unity 5: 2D Building an Adventure Game by Jesse Freeman. It was made back in 2016 but it had great reviews, so I wanted to give it a try.

We just got onto the coding part and I’m already seeing errors. I’ve tripled checked my code and they’re the same as the teachers, but I’m getting all these errors he’s not. I checked the QA and no one else has gotten these. I don’t understand where to find the errors or what to do. I can’t playtest my game until they’re solved.

What do the errors mean? What lines are the errors referring to?

They are described if you read them. The two numbers are the line number and column number so the first is Line 7, Column 24.

Look at line 7 or Line 8, they are invalid C#. Being as you’ve typed “+” and it’s on the same key as what is probably meant to be “=” there then I think you’re just making typos and not following the code you’re copying correctly.

btw

  • Why tag with “monodevelop”? You’re clearly using Visual Studio.
  • Here’s how you post code on the forums: Using code tags properly

Sounds like you’re just making typing mistakes. Nobody here can fix that… YOU must fix your typing mistakes. Fortunately it’s easy because 100% of what you need is publicly posted, either in the docs or in your tutorial.

The complete error message contains everything you need to know to fix the error yourself.

The important parts of the error message are:

  • the description of the error itself (google this; you are NEVER the first one!)
  • the file it occurred in (critical!)
  • the line number and character position (the two numbers in parentheses)
  • also possibly useful is the stack trace (all the lines of text in the lower console window)

Always start with the FIRST error in the console window, as sometimes that error causes or compounds some or all of the subsequent errors. Often the error will be immediately prior to the indicated line, so make sure to check there as well.

All of that information is in the actual error message and you must pay attention to it. Learn how to identify it instantly so you don’t have to stop your progress and fiddle around with the forum.

Remember: NOBODY here memorizes error codes. That’s not a thing. The error code is absolutely the least useful part of the error. It serves no purpose at all. Forget the error code. Put it out of your mind.

Tutorials and example code are great, but keep this in mind to maximize your success and minimize your frustration:

How to do tutorials properly, two (2) simple steps to success:

Step 1. Follow the tutorial and do every single step of the tutorial 100% precisely the way it is shown. Even the slightest deviation (even a single character!) generally ends in disaster. That’s how software engineering works. Every step must be taken, every single letter must be spelled, capitalized, punctuated and spaced (or not spaced) properly, literally NOTHING can be omitted or skipped.
Fortunately this is the easiest part to get right: Be a robot. Don’t make any mistakes.
BE PERFECT IN EVERYTHING YOU DO HERE!!

If you get any errors, learn how to read the error code and fix your error. Google is your friend here. Do NOT continue until you fix your error. Your error will probably be somewhere near the parenthesis numbers (line and character position) in the file. It is almost CERTAINLY your typo causing the error, so look again and fix it.

Step 2. Go back and work through every part of the tutorial again, and this time explain it to your doggie. See how I am doing that in my avatar picture? If you have no dog, explain it to your house plant. If you are unable to explain any part of it, STOP. DO NOT PROCEED. Now go learn how that part works. Read the documentation on the functions involved. Go back to the tutorial and try to figure out WHY they did that. This is the part that takes a LOT of time when you are new. It might take days or weeks to work through a single 5-minute tutorial. Stick with it. You will learn.

Step 2 is the part everybody seems to miss. Without Step 2 you are simply a code-typing monkey and outside of the specific tutorial you did, you will be completely lost. If you want to learn, you MUST do Step 2.

Of course, all this presupposes no errors in the tutorial. For certain tutorial makers (like Unity, Brackeys, Imphenzia, Sebastian Lague) this is usually the case. For some other less-well-known content creators, this is less true. Read the comments on the video: did anyone have issues like you did? If there’s an error, you will NEVER be the first guy to find it.

Beyond that, Step 3, 4, 5 and 6 become easy because you already understand!

Finally, when you have errors, don’t post here… just go fix your errors! See the top of this post.

If you post a code snippet, ALWAYS USE CODE TAGS:

How to use code tags: Using code tags properly

Thanks for all your help! I was able to find the errors. I used to do coding some time ago, but I’ve clearly got rusty at it.
This is my first post on the Unity forums, so I’m still learning how to make a post and do all the correct tagging. I was also really frustrated at the time of posting, so I mistagged it.

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