netbsd man page for mkstr

MKSTR(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						  MKSTR(1)

NAME
     mkstr -- create an error message file by massaging C source

SYNOPSIS
     mkstr [-] messagefile prefix file ...

DESCRIPTION
     mkstr creates files containing error messages extracted from C source, and restructures the same C source, to use the created error message
     file.  The intent of mkstr was to reduce the size of large programs and reduce swapping (see BUGS section below).

     mkstr processes each of the specified files, placing a restructured version of the input in a file whose name consists of the specified
     prefix and the original name.  A typical usage of mkstr is

	   mkstr pistrings xx *.c

     This command causes all the error messages from the C source files in the current directory to be placed in the file pistrings and restruc-
     tured copies of the sources to be placed in files whose names are prefixed with xx.

     Options:

     -	     Error messages are placed at the end of the specified message file for recompiling part of a large mkstr ed program.

     mkstr finds error messages in the source by searching for the string `error("' in the input stream.  Each time it occurs, the C string start-
     ing at the '"' is stored in the message file followed by a null character and a new-line character; The new source is restructured with
     lseek(2) pointers into the error message file for retrieval.

	   char efilname = "/usr/lib/pi_strings";
	   int efil = -1;

	   error(a1, a2, a3, a4)
	   {
		   char buf[256];

		   if (efil < 0) {
			   efil = open(efilname, 0);
			   if (efil < 0) {
	   oops:
				   perror(efilname);
				   exit 1 ;
			   }
		   }
		   if (lseek(efil, a1, 0) < 0 || read(efil, buf, 256) <= 0)
			   goto oops;
		   printf(buf, a2, a3, a4);
	   }

SEE ALSO
     xstr(1), lseek(2)

HISTORY
     mkstr appeared in 3.0BSD.

BUGS
     mkstr was intended for the limited architecture of the PDP-11 family.  Very few programs actually use it.	It is not an efficient method, the
     error messages should be stored in the program text.

BSD
								   June 6, 1993 							       BSD