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From: "Paul Derbyshire" <derbyshire AT globalserve DOT net>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 22:00:41 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0
Subject: Re: Mysterious gdb behavior.
Reply-to: derbyshire AT globalserve DOT net
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On 29 Jul 2002 at 13:36, Samuel wrote:

> > Error 193 is a Windows API error.  Specifically, it is
> > ERROR_BAD_EXE_FORMAT.  I thought the normal way to find this out was to
> > type "net helpmsg 193" but that doesn't work on my W2K system.
> 
> 
> For those that have the Windows SDK header files, the following is a copy of
> the relevant portion of winerror.h:
> 
> //
> // MessageId: ERROR_BAD_EXE_FORMAT
> //
> // MessageText:
> //
> //  %1 is not a valid Windows NT application.
> //
> #define ERROR_BAD_EXE_FORMAT             193L

It'd be nice of the gdb port would translate error numbers like 193 
into meaningful error messages. Instead, the user has to look around 
in winapi header files. No, scratch that, since gdb doesn't even 
indicate that it's a Windows error code, the user has to either be 
knowledgeable about the gdb source code and have the time and 
inclination to go hunting through it to see where the error message 
is coming from, or they have to ask the mailing list an expert on 
which will then do likewise. And, of course, the natural thing to do 
with the gdb source in this instance is to search it for #define foo 
193 only to find it isn't there, because it turned out gdb is only 
passing this number on from a system call...

Cryptic error messages, especially raw numbers, are the bane of 
troubleshooting and of end users everywhere.

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