pfmt(1) pfmt(1)
NAME
pfmt - display error message in standard format
SYNOPSIS
pfmt [-l label][-s severity][-g catalog:msgid] format [args]
DESCRIPTION
pfmt uses format for printf style formatting of args. pfmt
encapsulates the output in the standard error message format
and displays it on stderr.
The following options are available.
-l label Specify the label string to be displayed with the
message (for example, "UX:cat"). label is a
character string that is 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
-g catalog:msgid
Specify that a localized version of format should
be retrieved from a locale-specific message
database. catalog indicates the message database
Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc. Page 1
pfmt(1) pfmt(1)
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) or the
characters / (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
(identified by the LC_MESSAGES or LANG environment
variables), or if msgid is out of bounds, 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 the
format string if msgid 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 -l label 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
the following:
label: severity: text
label: TO FIX: text
EXAMPLES
Example 1:
pfmt -l UX:test -s error "Syntax error\n"
displays the message:
UX:test: ERROR: Syntax error
REFERENCES
environ(5), gettxt(1), pfmt(3C), printf(1)
Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc. Page 2
pfmt(1) pfmt(1)
DIAGNOSTICS
Upon success, pfmt exits with code 0.
Upon failure, pfmt exits with the following codes:
1 write error
3 syntax error
Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc. Page 3