what are possible causes of the "expected identifier or ‘(’ before ‘)’ token" error?

Question

I've looked at a lot of posts on stack regarding this question. It is almost always a simple semi-colon error, or parentheses/bracket mismatches. I do not believe this to be the case with my program however. I have a problem with this particular function:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <sys/time.h>

static char *macro_buf;
static unsigned int macro_buf_len;

static char *init_buf() {
    if (macro_buf == 0) {
        macro_buf_len = 200;
        macro_buf = (char *) malloc(sizeof(char) * macro_buf_len);
        macro_buf[0] = '\0';        
    }
    return macro_buf;
}

The error reports the first line of the function definition. What is interesting is if I remove this function, everything compiles fine and runs normally! I've checked for any special invisible characters, I have re-wrote it a few times to no avail. Is there something obvious that I am missing?

EDIT: After changing the name of my function, all is well. I want to assume this might be a function already defined in one of my header files?

EDIT: I forgot I was using a macro with the same name.

#define init_buf....

Thanks guys! This is my first project over 1000 lines and its getting very tough to manage. I will not forget this error now though!