NAME
elf_errmsg,
elf_errno —
ELF library error message handling
LIBRARY
ELF Access Library (libelf, -lelf)
SYNOPSIS
#include <libelf.h>
int
elf_errno(
void);
const char *
elf_errmsg(
int
error);
DESCRIPTION
When an error occurs during an ELF library API call, the library encodes the
error using an error number and stores the error number internally for
retrieval by the application at a later point of time. Error numbers may
contain an OS supplied error code in addition to an ELF API specific error
code. An error number value of zero indicates no error.
Function
elf_errno() is used to retrieve the last error
recorded by the ELF library. Invoking this function has the side-effect of
resetting the ELF library's recorded error number to zero.
The function
elf_errmsg() returns a null-terminated string
with a human readable description of the error specified in argument
error. A zero value for argument
error retrieves the most recent error encountered by the
ELF library. An argument value of -1 behaves identically, except that it
guarantees a non-NULL return from
elf_errmsg().
RETURN VALUES
Function
elf_errno() returns a non-zero value encoding the
last error encountered by the ELF library, or zero if no error was
encountered.
Function
elf_errmsg() returns a pointer to library local
storage for non-zero values of argument
error. With a
zero argument, the function will return a NULL pointer if no error had been
encountered by the library, or will return a pointer to library local storage
containing an appropriate message otherwise.
EXAMPLES
Clearing the ELF library's recorded error number can be accomplished by invoking
elf_errno() and discarding its return value.
/* clear error */
(void) elf_errno();
Retrieving a human-readable description of the current error number can be done
with the following snippet:
int err;
const char *errmsg;
...
err = elf_errno();
if (err != 0)
errmsg = elf_errmsg(err);
SEE ALSO
elf(3),
gelf(3)
BUGS
Function
elf_errmsg() is not localized.