NAME

strerror, strerror_l, strerror_r —

get error message string

SYNOPSIS

#include <string.h>

char *
strerror(int errnum);

char *
strerror_l(int errnum, locale_t locale);

int
strerror_r(int errnum, char *strerrbuf, size_t buflen);

DESCRIPTION

These functions map the error number errnum to an error message string.

strerror() and strerror_l() return a string containing a maximum of NL_TEXTMAX characters, including the trailing NUL. This string is not to be modified by the calling program. The string returned by strerror() may be overwritten by subsequent calls to strerror() in any thread. The string returned by strerror_l() may be overwritten by subsequent calls to strerror_l() in the same thread.

strerror_r() is a thread safe version of strerror() that places the error message in the specified buffer strerrbuf.

On OpenBSD, the global locale, the thread-specific locale, and the locale argument are ignored.

RETURN VALUES

strerror() and strerror_l() return a pointer to the error message string. If an error occurs, the error code is stored in errno.

strerror_r() returns zero upon successful completion. If an error occurs, the error code is stored in errno and the error code is returned.

ERRORS

All these functions may fail if:

[EINVAL]

errnum is not a valid error number. The returned error string will consist of an error message that includes errnum.

strerror_r() may also fail if:

[ERANGE]

The error message is larger than buflen characters. The message will be truncated to fit.

SEE ALSO

intro(2), newlocale(3), perror(3), setlocale(3)

STANDARDS

The strerror() function conforms to ISO/IEC 9899:1999 (“ISO C99”). The strerror_l() and strerror_r() functions conform to IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”).

HISTORY

The strerror() function has been available since 4.3BSD-Reno, strerror_r() since OpenBSD 3.3, and strerror_l() since OpenBSD 6.2.

CAVEATS

On systems other than OpenBSD, the LC_MESSAGES locale(1) category can cause different strings to be returned instead of the normal error messages; see CAVEATS in setlocale(3) for details.