the word "int" is a keyword in C++ -- this should fail miserably and the compiler should rightly give you a cascade of errors. And you can't declare something inside a cout operation. If you want to use "int i;" to declare an integer i and then output the value of i, do this: int i = 0; cout << i; HTH --le ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Hall" <mehgcap@xxxxxxx> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 3:49 PM Subject: c++ "cout" causing problems Hi all, I have not done c++ in a year or so, but even so this should work fine: cout << int+":"+int+":"+int; It causes the program to not compile, though; when I comment it out it works fine, but when I leave it says something about the + operator (I cannot review my errors very easily in the ide I have). What is going on? The statement should not have any problems. Oh, "int" are 3 variable names, h, m, and s. Thanks for any help. Have a great day, Alex __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind