What does "request for member '*******' in something not a structure or union" mean?

It also happens if you're trying to access an instance when you have a pointer, and vice versa:

struct foo
{
  int x, y, z;
};

struct foo a, *b = &a;

b.x = 12;  /* This will generate the error, should be b->x or (*b).x */

As pointed out in a comment, this can be made excruciating if someone goes and typedefs a pointer, i.e. includes the * in a typedef, like so:

typedef struct foo* Foo;

Because then you get code that looks like it's dealing with instances, when in fact it's dealing with pointers:

Foo a_foo = get_a_brand_new_foo();
a_foo->field = FANTASTIC_VALUE;

Note how the above looks as if it should be written a_foo.field, but that would fail since Foo is a pointer to struct. I strongly recommend against typedef:ed pointers in C. Pointers are important, don't hide your asterisks. Let them shine.

You are trying to access a member of a structure, but in something that is not a structure. For example:

struct {
    int a;
    int b;
} foo;
int fum;
fum.d = 5;

can also appear if:

struct foo {   int x, int y, int z }foo; 

foo.x=12

instead of

struct foo {   int x; int y; int z; }foo; 

foo.x=12

I saw this when I was trying to access the members.

My struct was this:

struct test { 
    int a;
    int b;
};
    
struct test testvar;

Normally we access structure members as

testvar.a;
testvar.b;

I mistook testvar to be a pointer and did this.

testvar->a;

That's when I saw this error.

request for member ‘a’ in something not a structure or union