ERR_PUT_ERROR(3SSL)

✨ ERR_PUT_ERROR(3SSL) ✨

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, because we're talking about recording errors in OpenSSL 💖 this is ERR_PUT_ERROR(3SSL) and it's literally the whole "put an error in the queue" friend group. no cap.

💅 NAME 💅

ERR_raise, ERR_raise_data, ERR_put_error, ERR_add_error_data, ERR_add_error_vdata, ERR_add_error_txt, ERR_add_error_mem_bio — record an error. that's the whole job, and they ate 🍓

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <openssl/err.h>

void ERR_raise(int lib, int reason);
void ERR_raise_data(int lib, int reason, const char *fmt, ...);

void ERR_add_error_data(int num, ...);
void ERR_add_error_vdata(int num, va_list arg);
void ERR_add_error_txt(const char *sep, const char *txt);
void ERR_add_error_mem_bio(const char *sep, BIO *bio);

and now for the deprecated one, the vintage queen:

The following function has been deprecated since OpenSSL 3.0, and can be hidden entirely by defining OPENSSL_API_COMPAT with a suitable version value, see openssl_user_macros(7):

void ERR_put_error(int lib, int func, int reason, const char *file, int line);

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

ERR_raise() adds a brand new error to the thread's error queue 🎀 The error occurred in the library lib for the reason given by the reason code. and not only that — the name of the file, the line, and the name of the function where the error occurred all get saved with the error record too. receipts, kept. iconic.

ERR_raise_data() does the exact same thing as ERR_raise(), but it also lets the caller drop in additional information as a format string fmt and an arbitrary number of values, which get processed with BIO_snprintf(3). extra context? she said yes ✨

ERR_put_error() adds an error code to the thread's error queue. It signals that the error of reason code reason occurred in function func of library lib, in line number line of file. This function is usually called by a macro.

ERR_add_error_data() associates the concatenation of its num string arguments as additional data with the error code added last. ERR_add_error_vdata() is similar, except the argument is a va_list. Multiple calls to these functions append to the current top of the error queue. oh and heads up — the total length of the string data per error is limited to 4096 characters. that's the cap, bestie, she's firm about it.

ERR_add_error_txt() appends the given text string as additional data to the last error queue entry, after inserting the optional separator string if it is not NULL and the top error entry does not yet have additional data. In case the separator is at the end of the text, it is not appended to the data. The sep argument may be for instance "\n" to insert a line break when needed. And if the associated data would become more than 4096 characters long (the limit we just mentioned, yes, the one up there), it gets split over sufficiently many new copies of the last error queue entry. she adapts, she thrives 💅

ERR_add_error_mem_bio() is the same as ERR_add_error_txt() except that the text string is taken from the given memory BIO. It appends '\0' to the BIO contents if not already NUL-terminated. polite but firm about the terminator 🫶

ERR_load_strings(3) can be used to register error strings so that the application can a generate human-readable error messages for the error code. (yes bestie, human-readable, we love a translation layer 🌈)

💖 Reporting errors 💖

OpenSSL library reports

Each OpenSSL sub-library has library code ERR_LIB_XXX and has its own set of reason codes XXX_R_.... These are both passed in combination to ERR_raise() and ERR_raise_data(), and the combination ultimately produces the correct error text for the reported error.

All these macros and the numbers they have as values are specific to OpenSSL's libraries. OpenSSL reason codes normally consist of textual error descriptions. For example, the function ssl3_read_bytes() reports a "handshake failure" as follows:

ERR_raise(ERR_LIB_SSL, SSL_R_SSL_HANDSHAKE_FAILURE);

There are two exceptions, and they're lowkey the main characters here:

• ERR_LIB_SYS — This "library code" indicates that a system error is being reported. In this case, the reason code given to ERR_raise() and ERR_raise_data() must be errno(3).

ERR_raise(ERR_LIB_SYS, errno);

• ERR_R_XXX — This set of error codes is considered global, and may be used in combination with any sub-library code.

ERR_raise(ERR_LIB_RSA, ERR_R_PASSED_INVALID_ARGUMENT);

🧚 Other pieces of software 🧚

Other pieces of software that may want to use OpenSSL's error reporting system, such as applications, must normally get their own numbers.

• To get a "library" code, call ERR_get_next_error_library(3); this gives the calling code a dynamic number, usable for the duration of the process.
• Reason codes for each such "library" are determined or generated by the authors of that code. They must be numbers in the range 1 to 524287 (in other words, they must be nonzero unsigned 18 bit integers).

The exceptions mentioned in "OpenSSL library reports" above are valid for other pieces of software, i.e. they may use ERR_LIB_SYS to report system errors:

ERR_raise(ERR_LIB_SYS, errno);

... and they may use ERR_R_XXX macros together with their own "library" code.

int app_lib_code = ERR_get_next_error_library();

/* ... */

ERR_raise(app_lib_code, ERR_R_PASSED_INVALID_ARGUMENT);

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⭐ RETURN VALUES ⭐

ERR_raise(), ERR_raise_data(), ERR_put_error(), ERR_add_error_data(), ERR_add_error_vdata() ERR_add_error_txt(), and ERR_add_error_mem_bio() return no values. nothing, nada, zero. they do the thing and they don't bring you a receipt for it. not everyone needs a return type, and that's valid 💜

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👑 NOTES 👑

ERR_raise(), ERR_raise() and ERR_put_error() are implemented as macros. (two ERR_raise()s, iconic typo energy, we keep it exactly as the page says, no editing her 💀)

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🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

ERR_load_strings(3), ERR_get_next_error_library(3)

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🌈 HISTORY 🌈

ERR_raise, ERR_raise_data, ERR_add_error_txt() and ERR_add_error_mem_bio() were added in OpenSSL 3.0. welcome to the world, little ones 🎉

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🫶 COPYRIGHT 🫶

Copyright 2000-2020 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You can obtain a copy in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at <https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.

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and that's the whole page, bestie — this was OpenSSL version 4.0.3 dated 2026-09-29, filed under ERR_PUT_ERROR(3SSL). go forth and raise your errors correctly, mwah 💖✨