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\"      @(#)error.1     8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
\"
Dd August 26, 2023
Dt ERROR 1
Os
Sh NAME
Nm error
Nd analyze and disperse compiler error messages
Sh SYNOPSIS
Nm
Op Fl nqSsTv
Op Fl I Ar ignorefile
Op Fl p Ar filelevel
Op Fl t Ar suffixes
Op Ar name
Sh DESCRIPTION
Nm
analyzes and optionally disperses the diagnostic error messages
produced by a number of compilers and language processors to the source
file and line where the errors occurred.
It can replace the painful,
traditional methods of scribbling abbreviations of errors on paper, and
permits error messages and source code to be viewed simultaneously
without machinations of multiple windows in a screen editor.
Pp
Options are:
Bl -tag -width XpXfilelevelXX
It Fl I Ar ignorefile
The
Ar ignorefile Po default: Pa ~/.errorrc Pc
contains a list of function names
that are not to be treated as hard errors.
It Fl n
Do
Em not
touch any files; all error messages are sent to the standard output.
It Fl p Ar filelevel
Interpret filelevel as a level of path component names to skip,
similar to
Xr patch 1 .
It Fl q
Query the user whether to touch the files.
A
Ql y
or
Ql n
to the question is necessary to continue.
Absence of the
Fl q
option implies that all referenced files
(except those referring to discarded error messages)
are to be touched.
It Fl S
Show the errors in unsorted order (as they come from the error file).
It Fl s
Print out statistics regarding the error categorization.
Not too useful.
It Fl T
Terse output.
It Fl t Ar suffixes
Only files whose suffix appears in the suffix list are touched.
The suffix list is dot-separated, and
Ql *
wildcards work.
Thus the suffix list
Ql .c.y.foo*.h
allows
Nm
to touch files ending with
Ql .c ,
Ql .y ,
Ql .foo*
and
Ql .h .
It Fl v
After all files have been touched,
overlay the visual editor
Xr \&vi 1
with it, set up to edit all files touched,
and positioned in the first touched file at the first error.
If
Xr \&vi 1
can't be found, try
Xr \&ex 1
or
Xr \&ed 1
from standard places.
El
Pp
Nm
looks at the error messages,
either from the specified file
Ar name
or from the standard input,
and attempts to determine which
language processor produced each error message,
determines the source file and line number to which the error message refers,
determines if the error message is to be ignored or not,
and inserts the (possibly slightly modified) error message into
the source file as a comment on the line preceding to which the
line the error message refers.
Error messages which can't be categorized by language processor
or content are not inserted into any file,
but are sent to the standard output.
Nm
touches source files only after all input has been read.
Pp
Nm
is intended to be run
with its standard input connected via a pipe to the error message source.
Some language processors put error messages on their standard error file;
others put their messages on the standard output.
Hence, both error sources should be piped together into
Nm .
Pp
For example, when using the
Xr sh 1
syntax
Pp
Dl make \-s lint 2>&1 \&| error \-q \-v
Pp
or the
Xr csh 1
syntax
Pp
Dl make \-s lint \&|& error \-q \-v
Pp
Nm
will analyze all the error messages produced
by whatever programs
Xr make 1
runs when making
Ar lint .
Pp
Nm
knows about the error messages produced by:
Xr make 1 ,
Xr \&cc 1 ,
Xr cpp 1 ,
Ic ccom ,
Xr \&as 1 ,
Xr \&ld 1 ,
Xr lint 1 ,
Ic \&pi ,
Ic \&pc ,
Ic f77 ,
and
Em DEC Western Research Modula\-2 .
Nm
knows a standard format for error messages produced by
the language processors,
so is sensitive to changes in these formats.
For all languages except Pascal,
error messages are restricted to be on one line.
Some error messages refer to more than one line in more than one file;
Nm
will duplicate the error message and insert it at
all of the places referenced.
Pp
Nm
will do one of six things with error messages.
Bl -tag -width synchronize
It Em synchronize
Some language processors produce short errors describing
which file it is processing.
Nm
uses these to determine the file name for languages that
don't include the file name in each error message.
These synchronization messages are consumed entirely by
Nm .
It Em discard
Error messages from
Xr lint 1
that refer to one of the two
Xr lint 1
libraries,
Pa /usr/libdata/lint/llib-lc
and
Pa /usr/libdata/lint/llib-port
are discarded,
to prevent accidentally touching these libraries.
Again, these error messages are consumed entirely by
Nm .
It Em nullify
Error messages from
Xr lint 1
can be nullified if they refer to a specific function,
which is known to generate diagnostics which are not interesting.
Nullified error messages are not inserted into the source file,
but are written to the standard output.
The names of functions to ignore are taken from
either the file named
Pa .errorrc
in the user's home directory,
or from the file named by the
Fl I
option.
If the file does not exist,
no error messages are nullified.
If the file does exist, there must be one function name per line.
It Em not file specific
Error messages that can't be intuited are grouped together,
and written to the standard output before any files are touched.
They will not be inserted into any source file.
It Em file specific
Error message that refer to a specific file, but to no specific line,
are written to the standard output when that file is touched.
It Em true errors
Error messages that can be intuited are candidates for
insertion into the file to which they refer.
El
Pp
Only true error messages are candidates for inserting into
the file they refer to.
Other error messages are consumed entirely by
Nm
or are written to the standard output.
Pp
Nm
inserts the error messages into the source file on the line
preceding the line the language processor found in error.
Each error message is turned into a one line comment for the
language,
and is internally flagged with the string
Ql ###
at the beginning of the error, and
Ql %%%
at the end of the error.
This makes pattern searching for errors easier with an editor,
and allows the messages to be easily removed.
In addition, each error message contains the source line number
for the line the message refers to.
Pp
A reasonably formatted source program can be recompiled
with the error messages still in it,
without having the error messages themselves cause future errors.
For poorly formatted source programs in free format languages,
such as C or Pascal,
it is possible to insert a comment into another comment,
which can wreak havoc with a future compilation.
To avoid this, programs with comments and source on the same line
should be formatted so that language statements appear before comments.
Pp
Nm
catches interrupt and terminate signals,
and if in the insertion phase,
will orderly terminate what it is doing.
Sh FILES
Bl -tag -width ~/.errorrc -compact
It Pa ~/.errorrc
function names to ignore for
Xr lint 1
error messages
It Pa /dev/tty
user's teletype
El
Sh HISTORY
The
Nm
command
appeared in
Bx 4.0 .
Sh AUTHORS
An Robert Henry
Sh BUGS
Opens the teletype directly to do user querying.
Pp
Source files with links make a new copy of the file with
only one link to it.
Pp
Changing a language processor's format of error messages
may cause
Nm
to not understand the error message.
Pp
Nm ,
since it is purely mechanical,
will not filter out subsequent errors caused by `floodgating'
initiated by one syntactically trivial error.
Humans are still much better at discarding these related errors.
Pp
Pascal error messages belong after the lines affected
Po
Nm
puts them before
Pc .
The alignment of the
Ql ^
marking the point of error is also disturbed by
Nm .
Pp
Nm
was designed for work on CRTs at reasonably high speed.
It is less pleasant on slow speed terminals, and has never been
used on hardcopy terminals.

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