odbx_error(3)

💖 odbx_error(3) — the OpenDBX manual, bestie edition 🎀

okay so picture this: you're deep in OpenDBX land, something went wrong (rude), and you need to know what happened in actual human words. That's literally this function. She's the translator between "cryptic number" and "bestie I got you" 💅

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✨ NAME ✨

odbx_error — returns a human readable error message 🫶

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <opendbx/api.h>

char* odbx_error (odbx_t* handle, int error);

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So odbx_error() returns an error string corresponding to the error code you hand it, or the error string generated by the native database library. Two flavors, same function, iconic behavior 🌈

⚠️ Heads up bestie: error strings that originate from the backend modules or from the native database client libraries get cleared as soon as the next odbx_*() function is called. So read it now, not later. Bloom gone, bye 😭

Also, all error strings are statically allocated — do not change them and do not free them. Not yours, don't touch 💀

And if the OpenDBX library is compiled with native language support and the user environment variables are set accordingly to a supported language, then strings which are part of the OpenDBX library get translated before being returned. Same may happen for strings returned by the native database libraries, but that totally depends on their support. iykyk ✨

the whole deal with handle 🎀

The first parameter, handle, is the connection object created and returned by odbx_init() — and it becomes invalid as soon as it was supplied to odbx_finish(). Like, she's done, she retired 👑

Anyhow — and this is the slay part — it isn't necessary to supply a valid handle for errors which use error codes not equal to -ODBX_ERR_BACKEND, because those are returned directly from a static error message array. So you can literally use odbx_error() even if odbx_init() wasn't successful. Main character energy, no prerequisites 💅

If you supply -ODBX_ERR_BACKEND in this case nevertheless, the returned error string will be the same as for an invalid handle. Consistency, periodt ✨

how the error codes actually work 🧚

Almost all OpenDBX library functions return an error code if one of the operations couldn't be completed successfully. The codes returned use values less than zero to indicate different kind of errors, and those values can be passed directly to odbx_error() to obtain the corresponding zero-terminated error string. No conversion, no in-between steps, just vibes 🍓

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💜 RETURN VALUE 💜

odbx_error() returns a zero-terminated string suitable for being displayed to the user of the application. That's it, that's the whole thing — a string you can show off 👑

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🔥 ERRORS 🔥

If a backend error occurred and handle is NULL or the supplied connection object is invalid, odbx_error() returns the localized string for -ODBX_ERR_PARAM. Yes, even your failure gets a cute localized message 💖

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🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

• odbx_error_type()
• odbx_init()

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okay that's the whole page, go forth and debug, bestie 🫶 this manual page is from the OpenDBX corner of the world, dated 6 February 2026 — mwah, kisses, bye 💋✨