A
function in the
libc that'll
print an
error message to
stderr based on
errno. The only
problem with this
function is that different
values for
errno can have
slightly different meanings depending upon which
call set it, and
perror will only print the most
generic error message possible. However, I do
love this
function a lot, seeing how it
saves programmers from doing an
ugly switch() on
errno upon
error with common
errno values and
corresponding messages.
The
Windows API really needs something like perror(). Badly. But
MICROS~1 is
dumb, so instead
Windows apps will usually give you an
integer as an
error message; for
anything more, a
programmer will have to
bend over backwards, and even then, he
probably won't have every
error code possible in his
switch().
I stand corrected about the
second paragraph;
wharfinger has
told me that there
is a way to have perror()-like
output in
Windows using FormatMessage(), give it a FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM
flag and it'll
describe an
error ID in a
char *. maybe I should do a little
research before I
run the
mouth. :)