Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:22815 comp.sys.mac.programmer:3129
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!unisoft!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: System error -37
Message-ID: <5880@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 14 Nov 88 20:21:07 GMT
References: <16930@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 28

In article <16930@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> c60a-2ce@e260-2b.berkeley.edu (Mikey)
writes:
>I was downloading a big batch of binhexed files from my Unix acct to my
>Mac when I first encountered the system error -37. I looked this up in
>all my references and could only glean this very descriptive explanation:
>bad name. What the hell?
>The thing that really vexes me is that I get this intermittently, and I
>can't find a pattern. I would use Xmodem (Y mode) and kermit on Unix,
>and I got this error for both! My Mac would receive a bunch of files
>properly in the batch, and then out of the blue I'd get this message, 
>and my transfer aborts. PLEASE HELP!

Bad file name error.  Maybe the name of the volume you're saving your
files to on the Mac is wrong.  Maybe a non-printing character got into
the file name.  Maybe there isn't a file name (that is, it has zero
characters).  A good Mac program should give you full text explanations
of these things when they happen, since it's only about a day's work
and a fairly small STR# resource, but sadly, many developers don't
bother.

It would be possible to write an INIT that latched onto these stupid
uninformative error numbers and automagically expanded them; maybe if
I'm really bored I'll do it someday.  A better solution would be for
Apple to start building error reporting into the system.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim
"Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion."
    - Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"