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From: apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Corrupt history file?
Message-ID: <2861@atari.UUCP>
Date: 19 Mar 91 21:33:32 GMT
References: <1991Mar14.053233.26712@jpradley.jpr.com> <1991Mar15.162041.17102@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 23

>>  expire problems:
>>  expire: `'r\022r\036' is not a directory (No such file or directory)

henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>[...]That message comes out when
>an archiving directory, specified either in explist or in the -a option,
>cannot be found.

I've seen a couple of messages from Henry to this effect -- "message A means
problem B."

It seems like these things could be added to the error messages.  I realize
that it would make things pretty verbose, but sometimes it's REALLY HARD to
grep through the source to find the error message text, then go to that
place and understand what conditions lead to the error.

This is kind of a general comment about error messages, I guess -- how do
you explain to the user just what conditions might have lead up to this
error being detected?  When isn't it worth it?

============================================
Opinions expressed above do not necessarily	-- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else.	  ...ames!atari!apratt