fmtmsg
fmtmsg(3) Linux Programmer’s Manual fmtmsg(3)
NAME
fmtmsg - print formatted error messages
SYNOPSIS
#include <fmtmsg.h>
int fmtmsg(long classification, const char *label,
int severity, const char *text,
const char *action, const char *tag);
DESCRIPTION
This function displays a message described by its parameters on the
device(s) specified in the classification parameter. For messages
written to stderr, the format depends on the MSGVERB environment vari-
able.
The label parameter identifies the source of the message. The string
must consist of two colon separated parts where the first part has not
more than 10 and the second part not more than 14 characters.
The text parameter describes the condition of the error.
The action parameter describes possible steps to recover from the
error. If it is printed, it is prefixed by "TO FIX: ".
The tag parameter is a reference to the online documentation where
more information can be found. It should contain the label value and
a unique identification number.
Dummy parameters
Each of the parameters can have a dummy value. The dummy classifica-
tion value MM_NULLMC (0L) does not specify any output, so nothing is
printed. The dummy severity value NO_SEV (0) says that no severity is
supplied. The values MM_NULLLBL, MM_NULLTXT, MM_NULLACT, MM_NULLTAG
are synonyms for ((char *) 0), the empty string, and MM_NULLSEV is a
synonym for NO_SEV.
The classification parameter
The classification parameter is the sum of values describing 4 types
of information.
The first value defines the output channel.
MM_PRINT Output to stderr.
MM_CONSOLE Output to the system console.
MM_PRINT | MM_CONSOLE
Output to both.
The second value is the source of the error:
MM_HARD A hardware error occurred.
MM_FIRM A firmware error occurred.
MM_SOFT A software error occurred.
The third value encodes the detector of the problem:
MM_APPL It is detected by an application.
MM_UTIL It is detected by a utility.
MM_OPSYS It is detected by the operating system.
The fourth value shows the severity of the incident:
MM_RECOVER It is a recoverable error.
MM_NRECOV It is a non-recoverable error.
The severity parameter
The severity parameter can take one of the following values:
MM_NOSEV No severity is printed.
MM_HALT This value is printed as HALT.
MM_ERROR This value is printed as ERROR.
MM_WARNING This value is printed as WARNING.
MM_INFO This value is printed as INFO.
The numeric values are between 0 and 4. Using addseverity() or the
environment variable SEV_LEVEL you can add more levels and strings to
print.
ENVIRONMENT
The environment variable MSGVERB ("message verbosity") can be used to
suppress parts of the output to stderr. (It does not influence output
to the console.) When this variable is defined, is non-NULL, and is a
colon-separated list of valid keywords, then only the parts of the
message corresponding to these keywords is printed. Valid keywords
are "label", "severity", "text", "action" and "tag".
The environment variable SEV_LEVEL can be used to introduce new sever-
ity levels. By default, only the five severity levels described above
are available. Any other numeric value would make fmtmsg() print
nothing. If the user puts SEV_LEVEL with a format like
SEV_LEVEL=[description[:description[:...]]]
in the environment of the process before the first call to fmtmsg(),
where each description is of the form
severity-keyword,level,printstring
then fmtmsg() will also accept the indicated values for the level (in
addition to the standard levels 0-4), and use the indicated
printstring when such a level occurs.
The severity-keyword part is not used by fmtmsg() but it has to be
present. The level part is a string representation of a number. The
numeric value must be a number greater than 4. This value must be
used in the severity parameter of fmtmsg() to select this class. It
is not possible to overwrite any of the predefined classes. The
printstring is the string printed when a message of this class is pro-
cessed by fmtmsg().
RETURN VALUES
The function can return 4 values:
MM_OK Everything went smooth.
MM_NOTOK Complete failure.
MM_NOMSG Error writing to stderr.
MM_NOCON Error writing to the console.
CONFORMING TO
The functions fmtmsg() and addseverity(), and environment variables
MSGVERB and SEV_LEVEL come from System V (XPG4-UNIX). The function
fmtmsg() and the environment variable MSGVERB are described in POSIX
1003.1-2001.
NOTES
System V and Unixware man pages tell us that these functions have been
replaced by "pfmt() and addsev()" or by "pfmt(), vpfmt(), lfmt(), and
vlfmt()", and will be removed later.
EXAMPLE
#include <stdio.h>
#include <fmtmsg.h>
int main() {
long class = MM_PRINT | MM_SOFT | MM_OPSYS | MM_RECOVER;
int err;
err = fmtmsg(class, "util-linux:mount", MM_ERROR,
"unknown mount option", "See mount(8).", "util-linux:mount:017");
switch(err) {
case MM_OK:
break;
case MM_NOTOK:
printf("Nothing printed\n");
break;
case MM_NOMSG:
printf("Nothing printed to stderr\n");
break;
case MM_NOCON:
printf("No console output\n");
break;
default:
printf("Unknown error from fmtmsg()\n");
}
return 0;
}
The output should be:
util-linux:mount: ERROR: unknown mount option
TO FIX: See mount(8). util-linux:mount:017
and after
MSGVERB=text:action; export MSGVERB
the output becomes:
unknown mount option
TO FIX: See mount(8).
SEE ALSO
addseverity(3), perror(3)
2003-11-01 fmtmsg(3)
