g++ might emit one of the following lines as part of an error messages: foo.hpp:1:4: required from ‘FOO’ bar.cpp:2:5: required from here rms.hpp:3:6: [ skipping EMACS instantiation contexts ] Right now (GNU Emacs 24.2.50.3 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.10) of 2012-08-26) these are picked up by compilation-error-regexp-alist-alist as errors although these messages just provide context to the real error.