solc compiler; ParserError: Token incompatible with Solidity parser

Question

I am trying to compile this contract (part of an online tutorial, not my contract). I'm running ethereumjs-testrpc (ganace precursor) on one terminal, then on another instantiate web3 object;

> Web3 = require('web3')
> web3 = new Web3(new Web3.providers.HttpProvider("http://localhost:8545"));

From there I get confirmation Im running on test network, I can call the dummy accounts, etc.

Then from there I believe I need to cast my .sol contract to a string object;

code = fs.readFileSync('voting.sol').toString()

And I get this:

I'm assuming there's an error in my contract, can't figure out where..

Answer 1

It looks like geth.

The contract itself says it needs solc 0.4.21 or better. You must be running an earlier version of solc. Try $ solc --version.

If your compiler is reasonably recent, you might get away with changing that first line to be more permissive. It also depends on whether that contract contains any syntax that really is nearly new.

You could also update your compiler so it does support 0.4.21 or better.

Hope it helps.