Are there any man pages for any of the system error messages?
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From: John Hasler on 7 Apr 2010 16:31 Jerry writes: > If IBM couldn't manage this in a timely fashion, how the heck are FOSS > developers expected to? Especially considering that Linux has orders of maginitude more software. In any case, it makes no sense to give people an error number and tell them to go look up the message when you can just give them the message. Mass storage isn't expensive any more. -- John Hasler jhasler(a)newsguy.com Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, WI USA
From: despen on 7 Apr 2010 17:42 markhobley(a)hotpop.donottypethisbit.com (Mark Hobley) writes: > Robert Riches <spamtrap42(a)verizon.net> wrote: >> On Mandriva 2010.0, this command >> >> ls fred >> >> produces this output >> >> ls: cannot access fred: No such file or directory >> >> A user should know that the name of the file in the middle of the >> message is a dynamic part of the message--that's just common >> sense. > > A use may not know that fred is the name of a file. And they are even less > likely to know that fred is the name of a file that does not exist. > > On a system utilizing Universal Error Messaging Infrastructure, > the message will probably appear as something like: > > Error: C2: No such file or directory: fred > > To get an explanation of what went wrong, the user will now simply type: > > man e c2 > > This will pull up the man page for the c2 error message. No way! First off, a 2 letter identifier is way too small for the number of messages involved. Second, C2 prints the output of perror (as we previously discussed). There can be all kinds of different text there.
From: unruh on 7 Apr 2010 18:17 On 2010-04-07, John Hasler <jhasler(a)newsguy.com> wrote: > Jerry writes: >> If IBM couldn't manage this in a timely fashion, how the heck are FOSS >> developers expected to? > > Especially considering that Linux has orders of maginitude more > software. > > In any case, it makes no sense to give people an error number and tell > them to go look up the message when you can just give them the message. > Mass storage isn't expensive any more. I think he is worried that the error messages are too terse and would like longer error messages which would, I suppose, give the user a complete lesson in the operation of computers. I find the ls example completely clear, and it is totally beyond me what his "error message man page" could add to it. I found the pango message totally obscure and doubt very very much that his man page would clarify it for me. That he would go through the 100000 programs and find and classify all their error messages I find ludicrous to contemplate. That writers of software would apply to him for error message numbers so they could report error messages with numbers I also find ludicrous to contemplate. If the author cannot write a readable error message they sure are not going to take the extra 10-15 hours to apply to him for an error message number, write an whole description of the error message and submit it back to him for inclusion in his man page. I think I would be surprized if more than 5 developers would do so. If he were to try to persuade writers to produce better error messages, that might be worthwhile. If he could persuade developers to even write documentation ( eg man pages) that would be worthwhile. But this project is an exercise in futility, and I think he has not the ghost of an idea of what it would involve. ..
From: Mark Hobley on 7 Apr 2010 19:08 despen(a)verizon.net wrote: > First off, a 2 letter identifier is way too small for the number > of messages involved. The identifier is not limited to 2 letters. It just so happens in this case, that C is the message set, and 2 is the code for "No such file or directory". Some message sets may have more than one letter and some codes may be more than one digit (HTTP404 for example is from message set HTTP, and the error code is 404 from that set. This corresponds to the "Not Found" error that sometimes appears in a browser window.) > Second, C2 prints the output of perror (as we previously discussed). > There can be all kinds of different text there. Yes, because set C is the message set that corresponds to messages from the C library, codes beginning with the single letter C, will probably correspond to those produced by perror. Programmers may change the wording of the message (as they do now), or the message may be internationalized. The error code C2 however will remain constant. The actual wording of the message is not important from the point of view of tying this to reference documentation. The man e c2 command will always display the appropriate manual page for this error, irrespective of the wording of the error message. Mark. -- Mark Hobley Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/
From: Baho Utot on 7 Apr 2010 19:50
Sidney Lambe wrote: [putolin] >> I come from an IBM mainframe environment where messages have >> numbers (see my earlier post). They make life immeasurably >> simpler, even in environments without as steep a learning curve >> as Linux does. >> >> This is one of the differences between a >> professionally-designed and -written OS and something else. > > Try slackware without KDE/Gnome, etc. and you'll change your mind > about what Linux can be. It is modeled after the Unix OSes not > the fumblings of the folks at GNU as they try desperately and > foolishly to be different from Unix. Why? > >> >> IMHO, of course. > > Says a guy running Windows. > > ROTFL! I use X windows too! > >> -- >> Marten Kemp (Fix ISP to reply) You can't help being >> ignorant 'cause there's always something you don't know; what >> you can't be is stupid. > > You've just proven yourself wrong there! > > ROTFLMAO!! > > Sid |