ustrerror(3)

💖 ustrerror(3) — the Allegro manual, but make it make sense 💖

okay bestie, welcome to ustrerror, a lil function from the Allegro game programming library. she's tiny, she's iconic, and she's here to translate your sad little error numbers into actual human words. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

ustrerror — returns a string describing errno. part of the Allegro game programming library. she's giving translator, she's giving emotional support for your error codes 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <allegro.h>

const char *ustrerror(int err);

that's it. one include, one function, zero drama. slay.

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so here's the vibe: this function hands you back a string that describes the error code err, and err normally comes straight from the variable errno. yes, that errno. the one that's been silently judging you this whole time 🙈

like, your code broke, errno is sitting there holding a cryptic integer, and you're just supposed to know what it means? no bestie, that's what ustrerror is for. she turns the number into words. main character energy fr fr ✨

here's the example from the manual, verbatim, no notes:

PACKFILE *input_file = pack_fopen("badname", "r");
if (input_file == NULL)
   allegro_message("%s\nSorry!\n", ustrerror(errno));

see how she's used? pack_fopen fails, input_file is NULL, and instead of printing some cursed number, you feed errno into ustrerror and get actual text. then allegro_message shows it to your user, along with a very sincere Sorry! 😭

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✨ RETURN VALUE ✨

she returns a pointer to a static string. and here's the important part, so listen up:

⚠️ do NOT modify that string and do NOT free it. it's not yours. hands off. 🙅‍♀️

and the other thing: if you make subsequent calls to ustrerror(), the string will be overwritten. so if you're holding onto that pointer thinking it's safe while you call ustrerror again — nope, that's the same buffer, bestie, and she has moved on 💀. copy it somewhere if you need it to stick around.

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• uconvert(3) 🌈
• allegro_error(3) 🦋

go read those too, they're part of the family 🫶

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🎀 the cute sign-off 🎀

this page is from Allegro, version 4.4.3 — that's the version and the source, right there in the footer, folded into this lil goodbye instead of a boring line at the bottom. and ustrerror(3) is the page name, which we already told you up top ✨

anyway bestie, go catch your errors, describe them kindly, and never ever free that static string. periodt 💅💖