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Message-ID: <375C2B73.9F01ED36@vinschen.de>
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 22:28:35 +0200
From: Corinna Vinschen <corinna AT vinschen DOT de>
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To: Chris Faylor <cgf AT cygnus DOT com>
CC: Mumit Khan <khan AT xraylith DOT wisc DOT EDU>,
        cygwin-developers AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com
Subject: Re: Text version of Windows error messages in small_printf considered 
 harmful
References: <37579252 DOT 34EB714E AT vinschen DOT de> <199906071552 DOT KAA02703 AT mercury DOT xraylith DOT wisc DOT edu> <19990607131522 DOT A1738 AT cygnus DOT com>
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Chris Faylor wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jun 07, 1999 at 10:52:55AM -0500, Mumit Khan wrote:
> >Corinna Vinschen <corinna AT vinschen DOT de> writes:
> >> Chris Faylor wrote:
> >> > Now that I've had the chance to use the extended error messages that
> >> > Mumit recently added to smallprint.c, I have to say that I'm not thrilled.
> >> > The error messages extend the length of the line so that things wrap
> >> > in a way that makes it hard to read.  Worse, I've received a couple of
> >> > strace logs from non-US users and the error messages are incomprehensible
> >> > to me.  Another problem is that it is not easy to figure out exactly
> >> > which error *code* is being displayed even when the error is in English.
> >>
> >> I agree. I'm native german and it's easier for me to work with error
> >> codes than with german or english error messages. It's definitely
> >> easier to find related information with the error code instead of with
> >> the error message.
> >
> >I on the other hand find it *very* cumbersome to look up error messages
> >when given just numbers; eg., 'dlopen: win32 error 113' or something
> >similar means nothing to a user, when something like 'dlopen: can't find
> >shared library' means a lot more.
> [...]

IMHO, the strace should help developers, not users.

Shouldn't we simply use an _STRACE_ERRTXT flag or else as a first try?
We would have both methods. Everyone may use it's prefered output type.

Corinna