freebsd-skq/lib/libc/string/strerror.3
Jilles Tjoelker 2973057493 Allow strerror(0) and strerror_r(0, ...).
Of course, strerror_r() may still fail with ERANGE.

Although the POSIX specification said this could fail with EINVAL and
doing this likely indicates invalid use of errno, most other
implementations permitted it, various POSIX testsuites require it to
work (matching the older sys_errlist array) and apparently some
applications depend on it.

PR:		standards/151316
MFC after:	1 week
2011-04-05 21:56:05 +00:00

190 lines
4.8 KiB
Groff

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.\" @(#)strerror.3 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd April 5, 2011
.Dt STRERROR 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm perror ,
.Nm strerror ,
.Nm strerror_r ,
.Nm sys_errlist ,
.Nm sys_nerr
.Nd system error messages
.Sh LIBRARY
.Lb libc
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In stdio.h
.Ft void
.Fn perror "const char *string"
.Vt extern const char * const sys_errlist[] ;
.Vt extern const int sys_nerr ;
.In string.h
.Ft "char *"
.Fn strerror "int errnum"
.Ft int
.Fn strerror_r "int errnum" "char *strerrbuf" "size_t buflen"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn strerror ,
.Fn strerror_r
and
.Fn perror
functions look up the error message string corresponding to an
error number.
.Pp
The
.Fn strerror
function accepts an error number argument
.Fa errnum
and returns a pointer to the corresponding
message string.
.Pp
The
.Fn strerror_r
function renders the same result into
.Fa strerrbuf
for a maximum of
.Fa buflen
characters and returns 0 upon success.
.Pp
The
.Fn perror
function finds the error message corresponding to the current
value of the global variable
.Va errno
.Pq Xr intro 2
and writes it, followed by a newline, to the
standard error file descriptor.
If the argument
.Fa string
is
.Pf non- Dv NULL
and does not point to the null character,
this string is prepended to the message
string and separated from it by
a colon and space
.Pq Dq Li ":\ " ;
otherwise, only the error message string is printed.
.Pp
If the error number is not recognized, these functions return an error message
string containing
.Dq Li "Unknown error:\ "
followed by the error number in decimal.
The
.Fn strerror
and
.Fn strerror_r
functions return
.Er EINVAL
as a warning.
Error numbers recognized by this implementation fall in
the range 0 <
.Fa errnum
<
.Fa sys_nerr .
The number 0 is also recognized, although applications that take advantage of
this are likely to use unspecified values of
.Va errno .
.Pp
If insufficient storage is provided in
.Fa strerrbuf
(as specified in
.Fa buflen )
to contain the error string,
.Fn strerror_r
returns
.Er ERANGE
and
.Fa strerrbuf
will contain an error message that has been truncated and
.Dv NUL
terminated to fit the length specified by
.Fa buflen .
.Pp
The message strings can be accessed directly using the external
array
.Va sys_errlist .
The external value
.Va sys_nerr
contains a count of the messages in
.Va sys_errlist .
The use of these variables is deprecated;
.Fn strerror
or
.Fn strerror_r
should be used instead.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr intro 2 ,
.Xr psignal 3
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Fn perror
and
.Fn strerror
functions conform to
.St -isoC-99 .
The
.Fn strerror_r
function conforms to
.St -p1003.1-2001 .
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Fn strerror
and
.Fn perror
functions first appeared in
.Bx 4.4 .
The
.Fn strerror_r
function was implemented in
.Fx 4.4
by
.An Wes Peters Aq wes@FreeBSD.org .
.Sh BUGS
For unknown error numbers, the
.Fn strerror
function will return its result in a static buffer which
may be overwritten by subsequent calls.
.Pp
The return type for
.Fn strerror
is missing a type-qualifier; it should actually be
.Vt const char * .
.Pp
Programs that use the deprecated
.Va sys_errlist
variable often fail to compile because they declare it
inconsistently.