In programming, an error occuring when the compiler can
not parse some code, or, to put it another way, when a
compiler thinks the code has improper syntax.
Usually this is the result of a typo, such as a missing a
semicolon in C.
For example, in C:
int x = ;
is a syntax error since the compiler sees an =, but no
value for it to refer to.
Not to be confused with semantic errors which do
not occur during parsing.