.\" Copyright (C) 2006 Justin Pryzby <pryzbyj@justinpryzby.com>

.\" and Copyright (C) 2006 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>

.\"

.\" %%%LICENSE_START(PERMISSIVE_MISC)

.\" Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining

.\" a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the

.\" "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including

.\" without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,

.\" distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to

.\" permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to

.\" the following conditions:

.\"

.\" The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be

.\" included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

.\"

.\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,

.\" EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF

.\" MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.

.\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY

.\" CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,

.\" TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE

.\" SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

.\" %%%LICENSE_END

.\"

.\" References:

.\"   glibc manual and source

.TH ERROR 3 2017-09-15 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"

.SH NAME

error, error_at_line, error_message_count, error_one_per_line,

error_print_progname \- glibc error reporting functions

.SH SYNOPSIS

.nf

.B #include <error.h>

.PP

.BI "void error(int " status ", int " errnum ", const char *" format ", ...);"

.PP

.BI "void error_at_line(int " status ", int " errnum ", const char *" filename ,

.BI "                   unsigned int " linenum ", const char *" format ", ...);"

.PP

.BI "extern unsigned int " error_message_count ;

.PP

.BI "extern int " error_one_per_line ;

.PP

.BI "extern void (*" error_print_progname ") (void);"

.fi

.SH DESCRIPTION

.BR error ()

is a general error-reporting function.

It flushes

.IR stdout ,

and then outputs to

.I stderr

the program name, a colon and a space, the message specified by the

.BR printf (3)-style

format string \fIformat\fP, and, if \fIerrnum\fP is

nonzero, a second colon and a space followed by the string given by

.IR strerror(errnum) .

Any arguments required for

.I format

should follow

.I format

in the argument list.

The output is terminated by a newline character.

.PP

The program name printed by

.BR error ()

is the value of the global variable

.BR program_invocation_name (3).

.I program_invocation_name

initially has the same value as

.IR main ()'s

.IR argv[0] .

The value of this variable can be modified to change the output of

.BR error ().

.PP

If \fIstatus\fP has a nonzero value, then

.BR error ()

calls

.BR exit (3)

to terminate the program using the given value as the exit status.

.PP

The

.BR error_at_line ()

function is exactly the same as

.BR error (),

except for the addition of the arguments

.I filename

and

.IR linenum .

The output produced is as for

.BR error (),

except that after the program name are written: a colon, the value of

.IR filename ,

a colon, and the value of

.IR linenum .

The preprocessor values \fB__LINE__\fP and

\fB__FILE__\fP may be useful when calling

.BR error_at_line (),

but other values can also be used.

For example, these arguments could refer to a location in an input file.

.PP

If the global variable \fIerror_one_per_line\fP is set nonzero,

a sequence of

.BR error_at_line ()

calls with the

same value of \fIfilename\fP and \fIlinenum\fP will result in only

one message (the first) being output.

.PP

The global variable \fIerror_message_count\fP counts the number of

messages that have been output by

.BR error ()

and

.BR error_at_line ().

.PP

If the global variable \fIerror_print_progname\fP

is assigned the address of a function

(i.e., is not NULL), then that function is called

instead of prefixing the message with the program name and colon.

The function should print a suitable string to

.IR stderr .

.SH ATTRIBUTES

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see

.BR attributes (7).

.ad l

.TS

allbox;

lb lb lbw33

l l l.

Interface	Attribute	Value

T{

.BR error ()

T}	Thread safety	MT-Safe locale

T{

.BR error_at_line ()

T}	Thread safety	T{

MT-Unsafe\ race: error_at_line/error_one_per_line locale

T}

.TE

.ad

.PP

The internal

.I error_one_per_line

variable is accessed (without any form of synchronization, but since it's an

.I int

used once, it should be safe enough) and, if

.I error_one_per_line

is set nonzero, the internal static variables (not exposed to users)

used to hold the last printed filename and line number are accessed

and modified without synchronization; the update is not atomic and it

occurs before disabling cancellation, so it can be interrupted only after

one of the two variables is modified.

After that,

.BR error_at_line ()

is very much like

.BR error ().

.SH CONFORMING TO

These functions and variables are GNU extensions, and should not be

used in programs intended to be portable.

.SH SEE ALSO

.BR err (3),

.BR errno (3),

.BR exit (3),

.BR perror (3),

.BR program_invocation_name (3),

.BR strerror (3)

.SH COLOPHON

This page is part of release 4.15 of the Linux

.I man-pages

project.

A description of the project,

information about reporting bugs,

and the latest version of this page,

can be found at

\%https://www.kernel.org/doc/man\-pages/.