ERROR(1) | General Commands Manual | ERROR(1) |
error
— analyze
and disperse compiler error messages
error |
[-nqSsTv ] [-I
ignorefile] [-p
filelevel] [-t
suffixes] [name] |
error
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.
Options are:
-I
ignorefile-n
-p
filelevel-q
y
’ or
‘n
’ to the question is necessary to
continue. Absence of the -q
option implies that
all referenced files (except those referring to discarded error messages)
are to be touched.-S
-s
-T
-t
suffixes*
’
wildcards work. Thus the suffix list
‘.c.y.foo*.h
’ allows
error
to touch files ending with
‘.c
’,
‘.y
’,
‘.foo*
’ and
‘.h
’.-v
error
looks at the error messages, either
from the specified file 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.
error
touches source files only after all input has
been read.
error
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 error
.
For example, when using the sh(1) syntax
make -s lint 2>&1 | error -q
-v
or the csh(1) syntax
make -s lint |& error -q
-v
error
will analyze all the error messages
produced by whatever programs
make(1) runs when making
lint.
error
knows about the error
messages produced by: make(1),
cc(1),
cpp(1),
ccom
,
as(1),
ld(1),
lint(1),
pi
, pc
,
f77
, and
DEC Western Research
Modula-2. error
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; error
will duplicate the
error message and insert it at all of the places referenced.
error
will do one of six things with error
messages.
error
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
error
.error
.-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.Only true error messages are candidates for inserting into the
file they refer to. Other error messages are consumed entirely by
error
or are written to the standard output.
error
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
‘###
’ at the beginning of the error,
and ‘%%%
’ 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.
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.
error
catches interrupt and terminate
signals, and if in the insertion phase, will orderly terminate what it is
doing.
The error
command appeared in
4.0BSD.
Robert Henry
Opens the teletype directly to do user querying.
Source files with links make a new copy of the file with only one link to it.
Changing a language processor's format of error messages may cause
error
to not understand the error message.
error
, 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.
Pascal error messages belong after the lines affected
(error
puts them before). The alignment of the
‘^
’ marking the point of error is also
disturbed by error
.
error
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.
August 26, 2023 | NetBSD 10.99 |