lfmt(1) lfmt(1)
NAME
lfmt - display error message in standard format and pass to
logging and monitoring services
SYNOPSIS
lfmt [-c] [-f flags] [-l label][-s severity][-g catalog:msgid] format [args]
DESCRIPTION
lfmt uses format for printf style formatting of args. lfmt
encapsulates the output in the standard error message format
and displays the output on stderr. In addition, lfmt forwards
its output to the logging and monitoring facility.
The following options are available.
-c Also display the output on the console, with a
date and time stamp.
-f flags Specify logging information as a comma-separated
list of keywords from the following sets:
Major classification
Identifies the source of the
condition. Identifiers are: hard
(hardware), soft (software), and firm
(firmware).
Message source subclassification
Identifies the type of software in
which the problem is spotted.
Identifiers are: appl (application),
util (utility), and opsys (operating
system).
-g catalog:msgid
Specify that a localized version of format should
be retrieved from a locale-specific message
database. catalog indicates 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 character values, excluding \0 (null) and the
ASCII codes for / (slash) and : (colon).
msgid is a positive number that indicates the
index of the string into the message database.
If catalog does not exist in the current locale
Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc. Page 1
lfmt(1) lfmt(1)
(identified by the LC_MESSAGES or LANG environment
variables), or if msgid is out of bounds, lfmt
will attempt to retrieve the message from the C
locale. If this second retrieval fails, lfmt uses
the format string as passed on the command line.
lfmt will output Message not found!!\n as the
format string if catalog is not a valid catalog
name, or if msgid is not a valid number as defined
above.
-l label Specify the label string to be displayed with the
message (for example, "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.
-s severity Specify the severity string to be displayed with
the message. Acceptable strings include the
standard severities in either their print string
(that is, HALT, ERROR, INFO, WARNING, and "TO
FIX") or keyword (that is, 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 keywords and definitions of the standard levels
of severity are:
halt application has encountered a severe
fault and is halting
error application has detected a fault
warn application has detected a condition
that is out of the ordinary and might
be a problem
info application is providing information
about a condition that is not in error
nostd do not print a severity message
Standard Error Message Format
lfmt displays error messages in the following format:
label: severity: text
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lfmt(1) lfmt(1)
If no label was defined using the -l label option, the message
is displayed in the format:
severity: text
If lfmt is called twice to display an error message and a
helpful action or recovery message, the output can look like
the following:
label: severity: text
label: TO FIX: text
EXAMPLES
Example 1:
lfmt -f soft,util -l UX:test -s info "test facility enabled\n"
displays the message to stderr and makes it available for
logging:
UX:test: INFO: test facility enabled
REFERENCES
environ(5), gettxt(1), lfmt(3C), pfmt(1), pfmt(3C), printf(1)
DIAGNOSTICS
Upon success, lfmt exits with code 0.
Upon failure, lfmt exits with the following codes:
1 write error
2 cannot log or forward to console
3 syntax error
Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc. Page 3