ERRSTR(3)

NAME
errstr, rerrstr, werrstr - description of last system call error

SYNOPSIS
#include <u.h>
#include <libc.h>

int errstr(char *err, uint nerr)

void rerrstr(char *err, uint nerr)

void werrstr(char *fmt, ...)

DESCRIPTION
When a system call fails it returns -1 and records a null terminated string describing the error in a per-process buffer. Errstr swaps the contents of that buffer with the contents of the array err. Errstr will write at most nerr bytes into err; if the per-process error string does not fit, it is silently truncated at a UTF character boundary. The returned string is NUL-terminated. Usually errstr will be called with an empty string, but the exchange property provides a mechanism for libraries to set the return value for the next call to errstr.

The per-process buffer is ERRMAX bytes long. Any error string provided by the user will be truncated at ERRMAX-1 bytes. ERRMAX is defined in <libc.h>.

If no system call has generated an error since the last call to errstr with an empty string, the result is an empty string.

The verb r in print(3) calls errstr and outputs the error string.

Rerrstr reads the error string but does not modify the per-process buffer, so a subsequent errstr will recover the same string.

Werrstr takes a print style format as its argument and uses it to format a string to pass to errstr. The string returned from errstr is discarded.

SOURCE
/usr/local/plan9/src/libc/9syscall
/usr/local/plan9/src/libc/9sys/werrstr.c

DIAGNOSTICS
Errstr always returns 0.

SEE ALSO
intro(3), perror(3)