Error reporting

Most BFD functions return nonzero on success (check their individual documentation for precise semantics). On an error, they call bfd_set_error to set an error condition that callers can check by calling bfd_get_error. If that returns bfd_error_system_call, then check errno. The easiest way to report a BFD error to the user is to use bfd_perror.

Type bfd_error_type

The values returned by bfd_get_error are defined by the enumerated type bfd_error_type.
.

typedef enum bfd_error
{
  bfd_error_no_error = 0,
  bfd_error_system_call,
  bfd_error_invalid_target,
  bfd_error_wrong_format,
  bfd_error_invalid_operation,
  bfd_error_no_memory,
  bfd_error_no_symbols,
  bfd_error_no_armap,
  bfd_error_no_more_archived_files,
  bfd_error_malformed_archive,
  bfd_error_file_not_recognized,
  bfd_error_file_ambiguously_recognized,
  bfd_error_no_contents,
  bfd_error_nonrepresentable_section,
  bfd_error_no_debug_section,
  bfd_error_bad_value,
  bfd_error_file_truncated,
  bfd_error_file_too_big,
  bfd_error_invalid_error_code
} bfd_error_type;

bfd_get_error

Synopsis

bfd_error_type bfd_get_error (void);

Description
Return the current BFD error condition.

bfd_set_error

Synopsis

void bfd_set_error (bfd_error_type error_tag);

Description
Set the BFD error condition to be error_tag.

bfd_errmsg

Synopsis

CONST char *bfd_errmsg (bfd_error_type error_tag);

Description
Return a string describing the error error_tag, or the system error if error_tag is bfd_error_system_call.

bfd_perror

Synopsis

void bfd_perror (CONST char *message);

Description
Print to the standard error stream a string describing the last BFD error that occurred, or the last system error if the last BFD error was a system call failure. If message is non-NULL and non-empty, the error string printed is preceded by message, a colon, and a space. It is followed by a newline.

BFD error handler

Some BFD functions want to print messages describing the problem. They call a BFD error handler function. This function may be overriden by the program. The BFD error handler acts like printf.
.

typedef void (*bfd_error_handler_type) PARAMS ((const char *, ...));

bfd_set_error_handler

Synopsis

bfd_error_handler_type bfd_set_error_handler (bfd_error_handler_type);

Description
Set the BFD error handler function. Returns the previous function.

bfd_set_error_program_name

Synopsis

void bfd_set_error_program_name (const char *);

Description
Set the program name to use when printing a BFD error. This is printed before the error message followed by a colon and space. The string must not be changed after it is passed to this function.