NAME

pfmt − display error message in standard format

SYNOPSIS

pfmt [−llabel][−sseverity][−gcatalog:msgid] format [args]

DESCRIPTION

pfmt uses format for printf style formatting of args.  If the −g option is specified, pfmt retrieves a localized version of the format string from a locale-specific message database.  The output is displayed on stderr. 

pfmt encapsulates the output in the standard error message format.  The −llabel option specifies the label string to be displayed with the message (e.g. "UX:cat").  label is a character string no more than 25 characters in length; it will be automatically suffixed with a colon (:).  When unspecified, no label is displayed as part of the message. 

The −sseverity option specifies the severity string to be displayed with the message.  Acceptable strings include the standard severities in either their print string (i.e. HALT, ERROR, INFO, WARNING, and "TO FIX") or keyword (i.e. halt, error, info, warn, and action) forms, or any other user-defined string.  A user-defined string will be assigned the integer severity value of 5.  The severity will be suffixed with a colon (:).  The ERROR severity will be used if no severity is specified. 

The −gcatalog:msgnum option specifies that a localized version of the format should be retrieved from a message database.  catalog is used to indicate the message database that contains the localized version of the format string.  catalog must be limited to 14 characters.  These characters must be selected from a set of all characters values, excluding \0 (null) and the ASCII codes for / (slash) and : (colon). 

msgnum is a positive number that indicates the index of the string into the message database. 

If the catalog does not exist in the current locale (identified by the LC_MESSAGES or LANG environment variables), or if the message number is out of bound, pfmt will attempt to retrieve the message from the C locale.  If this second retrieval fails, pfmt uses the format string as passed on the command line. 

pfmt will output Message not found!!\n as format string if catalog is not a valid catalog name, or if msgnum is not a valid number. 

STANDARD ERROR MESSAGE FORMAT

pfmt displays error messages in the following format:

label: severity: text

If no label was defined using the -llabel option, the message is displayed in the format:

severity: text

If pfmt is called twice to display an error message and a helpful action or recovery message, the output can look like:

label: severity: text
label: TO FIX: text

ERRORS

Upon success, pfmt exits with code 0.  Upon failure, pfmt exits with the following codes:

1 write error. 

3 syntax error. 

EXAMPLE

pfmt -l UX:test -s error "Syntax error\n"

displays the message:

UX:test: ERROR: Syntax error

SEE ALSO

environ(5), gettxt(1), lfmt(1), pfmt(3C), printf(1),

  —  Essential Utilities