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Re: Text version of Windows error messages in small_printf considered harmful
Chris Faylor wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jun 07, 1999 at 10:52:55AM -0500, Mumit Khan wrote:
> >Corinna Vinschen <corinna@vinschen.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