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

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

SYNOPSIS
     mkstr [-] mesgfile prefix file ...

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

     The mkstr utility 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 restructured
     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 mkstred program.

     The mkstr utility finds error messages in the source by searching for the
     string ‘error("’ in the input stream.  Each time it occurs, the C string
     starting 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)
				   err(1, "%s", efilname);
		   }
		   if (lseek(efil, (off_t)a1, SEEK_SET) < 0 ||
		       read(efil, buf, 256) <= 0)
			   err(1, "%s", efilname);
		   printf(buf, a2, a3, a4);
	   }

SEE ALSO
     gencat(1), xstr(1), lseek(2)

HISTORY
     An mkstr utility appeared in 3.0BSD.

BUGS
     The mkstr utility was intended for the limited architecture of the PDP 11
     family.  Very few programs actually use it.  The memory savings are neg‐
     ligible in modern computers.

BSD			       November 1, 2002 			   BSD