Illegal use of reserved keyword "else"

Hello everyone.

I'm running a code and I get the aforementioned error for the following part:

% process ratings
    formatSpec = '%d,%d,%d,%d,%d,%d,%d,%d,%d,%d,%d,%d,%d,%d,\n';
    ratings_matrix = fscanf(fileID, formatSpec, ratings_matrix_size);
    if (size(ratings_matrix, 2) > 0)
        % check for honeypot question
        hp = (ratings_matrix(end,:) == 2 | ratings_matrix(end,:) == 3 | ratings_matrix(end,:) == 4);
        if (sum(hp) ~= 0)
             disp("Warning: honey-pot check failed.");
             index = find(hp, 1);
             number_of_dropped_ratings = number_of_dropped_ratings + (size(ratings_matrix, 2) - index + 1);
             ratings_matrix = ratings_matrix(:, 1 : index - 1);
             number_of_failed_checks = number_of_failed_checks + 1;
        end
        participant_id_vector = k * ones(1, size(ratings_matrix, 2));
        ratings = [ratings; [participant_id_vector; ratings_matrix(3:end,:)]'];
        number_of_participants = number_of_participants + 1;
    else
        nationality(k) = "NULL";
        study_level(k) = "NULL";
        gender(k) = -1;
        age(k) = -1;
    end

The error apperas to be in the last else statement but I can't figure out what's wrong. Thank you for your help!

[Stephen23]

@Eleonora Ceccaldi: please show us the complete error message. This means all of the red text.

[Eleonora Ceccaldi]

This is the message I get:

Error: File: process_ratings.m Line: 75 Column: 5

Illegal use of reserved keyword "else".

[Stephen23]

@Eleonora Ceccaldi: please upload the file "process_ratings.m" by clicking the paperclip button.

[Adam]

Does your code contain any warnings in the editor underlined in orange, or more importantly red underlined errors?

It would seem impossible to arrive at this error without running code that is clearly highlighting to you with red underlining that it is wrong.

[Image Analyst]

Please post at least the 75 lines, since the code looks ok. Try this: type control-a and control-i to fix indenting and make sure everything lines up. Also make sure you have an end for every if, and make sure you don't have any "else if" (space between) when you want "elseif" (all one word).

[dpb]

Another thing to look for in funky messages that don't seem to align with code -- a missing closing ] or the like will let the parser keep going trying to close that brace...resulting on occasion with misinterpretations of the intended code that lead to peculiar error messages.

The upshot is, the actual error can be far removed (before) from where the error message points.

[Steven Lord]

The upshot is, the actual error can be far removed (before) from where the error message points.

Yes. Bugs Bunny may not realize he should have made a left turn at Albuquerque (in the United States) until he ends up in, say, Germany (for reference Berlin is about 5400 miles or 8700 kilometers away from Albuquerque according to Google Maps.)

MATLAB will error the first time it "realizes" something's wrong, like an else outside an if due to an extra end (despite the cause being the extra end) or where you do something that can't be put in an array but MATLAB is trying to do so due to a missing closing square bracket on a previous line.

[Eleonora Ceccaldi]

It turns out the problem was with the file name! Thanks a lot

[dpb]

I like the analogy, Steven! :) Will have to remember that for future.