Compiler Error Messages

[Barry Shein]

[Re: C compilers that emit 'non-standard' error messages]

From: Root Boy Jim <rbj at ICST-CMR.ARPA>
>The `error' command `knows' what compiler errors look like. So does
>the emacs `compile' and `next-error' functions. While not strictly
>part of `unix', and while the formats have never been formally defined,
>it is a most regretable omission.

They knew the job was dangerous when they took it.

I doubt the people who wrote error or the emacs functions would be
shocked that it wasn't entirely portable, I think they figured it
would be handy anyhow and they'd worry about these problems another
day (lacking a written standard you just have to do that sometimes.)

I would agree that if the new formats made it difficult to construct
(or, better, "fix") such utilities then the compiler writers were
probably being myopic about the whole UNIX thing (I would, however, be
supportive of adding a "verbose" error option which should be trivial
for the compiler writer to implement), that's another issue tho
perhaps states your complaint better.

Chapter and Verse:

"Although the terseness of typical UNIX programs is, to some extent,
a matter of taste, it is also connected with the way programs tend
to be combined."

	D.M. Ritchie, `Unix Time-Sharing System: A Retrospective',
	in BSTJ, July-August 1978, Vol. 57, No. 6, Part 2, p. 1958

		-Barry Shein, Boston University

P.S. And yes, better still if, given a verbose error option, the
format of non-verbose errors were standardized with post-processors in
mind.