Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 13:37:46 +0300 (IDT)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
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To: Martin Peach <martin AT loplop DOT com>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Do Error Messages Really Help?
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On Tue, 24 Aug 1999, Martin Peach wrote:

> It sure would be useful to have stuff like ENOENT written out in long, I
> keep trying to guess what it might possibly stand for.

You shouldn't be guessing, because the error message doesn't say 
"ENOENT", it says "No such file or directory (ENOENT)".  In other words, 
it tells you the problem in human-readable English, and *then* also tells 
you that the mnemonic for this error is ENOENT.

The reason for this mnemonic and not some other is compatibility: many 
programs do comparisons on errno values, like this:

	if (errno == ENOENT)
	  process_the_case_of_a_missing_file ();