fmtmsg(1)

fmtmsg -- display a message on stderr or system console

Synopsis

fmtmsg [-c class] [-u subclass] [-l label] [-s severity] [-t tag] [-a action] text

Description

Based on a message's classification component, fmtmsg either writes a formatted message to stderr or writes a formatted message to the console.

A formatted message consists of up to five standard components as defined below. The classification and subclass components are not displayed as part of the standard message, but rather define the source of the message and direct the display of the formatted message. The valid options are:

-c class

Describes the source of the message. Valid keywords are:

hard: The source of the condition is hardware.
soft: The source of the condition is software.
firm: The source of the condition is firmware.

-u subclass

A list of keywords (separated by commas) that further defines the message and directs the display of the message. Valid keywords are:

appl: The condition originated in an application. This keyword should not be used in combination with either util or opsys.
util: The condition originated in a utility. This keyword should not be used in combination with either appl or opsys.
opsys: The message originated in the kernel. This keyword should not be used in combination with either appl or util.
recov: The application will recover from the condition. This keyword should not be used in combination with nrecov.
nrecov: The application will not recover from the condition. This keyword should not be used in combination with recov.
print: Print the message to the standard error stream stderr.
console: Write the message to the system console. print, console, or both may be used.

-l label

Identifies the source of the message.

-s severity

Indicates the seriousness of the error. The keywords and definitions of the standard levels of severity are:

halt: The application has encountered a severe fault and is halting.
error: The application has detected a fault.
warn: The application has detected a condition that is out of the ordinary and might be a problem.
info: The application is providing information about a condition that is not in error.

-t tag

The string containing an identifier for the message.

-a action

A text string describing the first step in the error recovery process. This string must be written so that the entire action argument is interpreted as a single argument. fmtmsg precedes each action string with the TO FIX: prefix.

text

A text string describing the condition. Must be written so that the entire text argument is interpreted as a single argument.

The environment variables MSGVERB and SEV_LEVEL control the behavior of fmtmsg. MSGVERB is set by the administrator in the /etc/profile for the system. Users can override the value of MSGVERB set by the system by resetting MSGVERB in their own .profile files or by changing the value in their current shell session. SEV_LEVEL can be used in shell scripts.

MSGVERB tells fmtmsg which message components to select when writing messages to stderr. The value of MSGVERB is a colon separated list of optional keywords. MSGVERB can be set as follows:

MSGVERB=[keyword[: keyword[:. . .]]]
export MSGVERB

Valid keywords are: label, severity, text, action, and tag. If MSGVERB contains a keyword for a component and the component's value is not the component's null value, fmtmsg includes that component in the message when writing the message to stderr. If MSGVERB does not include a keyword for a message component, that component is not included in the display of the message. The keywords may appear in any order. If MSGVERB is not defined, if its value is the null string, if its value is not of the correct format, or if it contains keywords other than the valid ones listed above, fmtmsg selects all components.

MSGVERB affects only which message components are selected for display. All message components are included in console messages.

SEV_LEVEL defines severity levels and associates print strings with them for use by fmtmsg. The standard severity levels shown below cannot be modified. Additional severity levels can be defined, redefined, and removed.

0: (no severity is used)
1: HALT
2: ERROR
3: WARNING
4: INFO

SEV_LEVEL is set as follows:

SEV_LEVEL=[description[: description[: . . . ]]]
export SEV_LEVEL

description is a comma-separated list containing three fields:

description=severity_keyword,level, printstring

severity_keyword is a character string used as the keyword with the -s severity option to fmtmsg.

level is a character string that evaluates to a positive integer (other than 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4, which are reserved for the standard severity levels). If the keyword severity_keyword is used, level is the severity value passed on to fmtmsg(3C).

printstring is the character string used by fmtmsg in the standard message format whenever the severity value level is used.

If SEV_LEVEL is not defined, or if its value is null, no severity levels other than the defaults are available. If a description in the colon separated list is not a comma separated list containing three fields, or if the second field of a comma separated list does not evaluate to a positive integer, that description in the colon separated list is ignored.

Errors

The exit codes for fmtmsg are the following:

0: All the requested functions were executed successfully.
1: The command contains a syntax error, an invalid option, or an invalid argument to an option.
2: The function executed with partial success, however the message was not displayed on stderr.
4: The function executed with partial success, however the message was not displayed on the system console.
32: No requested functions were executed successfully.

Examples

Example 1

The following example of fmtmsg produces a complete message in the standard message format and displays it to the standard error stream:

fmtmsg -c soft -u recov,print,appl -l UX:cat -s error \
-t UX:cat:001 -a "refer to manual" "invalid syntax"

produces:

UX:cat: ERROR: invalid syntax
TO FIX: refer to manual UX:cat:001

Example 2

When the environment variable MSGVERB is set as follows:

MSGVERB=severity:text:action

and Example 1 is used, fmtmsg produces:

ERROR: invalid syntax
TO FIX: refer to manual

Example 3

When the environment variable SEV_LEVEL is set as follows:

SEV_LEVEL=note,5,NOTE

the following fmtmsg command:

fmtmsg -c soft -u print -l UX:cat -s note \
-a "refer to manual" "invalid syntax"

produces:

UX:cat: NOTE: invalid syntax
TO FIX: refer to manual

and displays the message on stderr.

Notices

A slightly different standard error message format and a new developer interface, pfmt, is being introduced as the replacement for fmtmsg. A similar interface, lfmt, is also being introduced for producing a standard format message and forwarding messages to the console and/or to the system message logging and monitoring facilities.

fmtmsg will be removed and replaced by pfmt in a future release.

References

addseverity(3C), fmtmsg(3C)