NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     mkstr - create an error message file by massaging C source

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     mkstr [-] messagefile prefix file [...]

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     mkstr creates files containing error messages extracted from
C source,
     and  restructures  the same C source, to utilize the created
error message
     file.  The intent of mkstr was to reduce the size  of  large
programs and
     reduce swapping (see BUGS section below).

     mkstr  processes  each of the specified files, placing a restructured version
 of the input in a file whose name consists of the specified prefix
     and the original name.  A typical usage of mkstr is

           $ mkstr pistrings xx *.c

     This command causes all the error messages from the C source
files in the
     current directory to be placed in the file ``pistrings'' and
restructured
     copies  of the sources to be placed in files whose names are
prefixed with
     ``xx''.

     The options are as follows:

     -       Error messages are placed at the end of  the  specified messagefile
             for recompiling part of a large mkstred program.

     mkstr  finds  error  messages in the source by searching for
the string
     `error("' in the input stream.  Each time it occurs,  the  C
string starting
  at  the `"' is stored in the message file followed by a
null character
     and a newline character.  The  new  source  is  restructured
with lseek(2)
     pointers into the error message file for retrieval.

           char efilname = "/usr/lib/pi_strings";
           int efil = -1;

           error(a1, a2, a3, a4)
           {
                   char buf[256];

                   if (efil < 0) {
                           efil = open(efilname, 0);
                           if (efil < 0) {
           oops:
                                   perror(efilname);
                                   exit 1 ;
                           }
                   }
                   if (lseek(efil, (long) a1, 0)  read(efil, buf,
256) <= 0)
                           goto oops;
                   printf(buf, a2, a3, a4);
           }

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

     xstr(1), lseek(2)

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     mkstr appeared in 3.0BSD.

BUGS    [Toc]    [Back]

     mkstr was intended for the limited architecture of  the  PDP
11 family.
     Very  few programs actually use it.  The pascal interpreter,
pi, and the
     editor, ex(1), are two programs that are built this way.  It
is not an
     efficient method; the error messages should be stored in the
program
     text.

OpenBSD      3.6                           June      6,      1993