diff --git a/src/compiler/tsc.ts b/src/compiler/tsc.ts
index 6872c4c876e..36f8eb226d6 100644
--- a/src/compiler/tsc.ts
+++ b/src/compiler/tsc.ts
@@ -355,18 +355,20 @@ namespace ts {
         return { program, exitStatus };
 
         function compileProgram(): ExitStatus {
-            // First get any syntactic errors.
-            let diagnostics = program.getSyntacticDiagnostics();
+            let diagnostics: Diagnostic[];
+            
+            // First get and report any syntactic errors.
+            diagnostics = program.getSyntacticDiagnostics();
             reportDiagnostics(diagnostics);
 
             // If we didn't have any syntactic errors, then also try getting the global and
             // semantic errors.
             if (diagnostics.length === 0) {
-                let diagnostics = program.getGlobalDiagnostics();
+                diagnostics = program.getGlobalDiagnostics();
                 reportDiagnostics(diagnostics);
 
                 if (diagnostics.length === 0) {
-                    let diagnostics = program.getSemanticDiagnostics();
+                    diagnostics = program.getSemanticDiagnostics();
                     reportDiagnostics(diagnostics);
                 }
             }