Human Readable Errors

Human Readable Errors

OSStatus Errors

From Uli's blog, in CoreServices/CarbonCore/Debugging.h:

const char* GetMacOSStatusErrorString(OSStatus err); 
const char* GetMacOSStatusCommentString(OSStatus err);

Also noErr means success. Full documentation at the end of this page.

IOKit and Mach

Also from Uli's blog:

#import <mach/mach_error.h>
 
char *mach_error_string(mach_error_t error_value);

Excerpt from Debugging.h

From CoreServices/CarbonCore/Debugging.h:

/*
 *  GetMacOSStatusErrorString()
 *  
 *  Summary:
 *    Returns a const char* string which corresponds to the textual
 *    constant for the given OSStatus code.
 *  
 *  Discussion:
 *    This function returns a text string which corresponds to the
 *    given OSStatus code, based on the errors in MacErrors.h.  For
 *    example, GetMacOSStatusErrorString( -43 ) returns "fnfErr", which
 *    is the text representation for the error constant -43.  This
 *    function is useful if you want to get or print out ( for
 *    debugging purposes only ) a useful description for a given
 *    OSStatus error.  If no string is available for the given
 *    constant, then the empty string "" is returned. Some error values
 *    have multiple meanings; in those cases the multiple meanings are
 *    all returned seperated by '/'es.
 *  
 *  Mac OS X threading:
 *    Thread safe
 *  
 *  Parameters:
 *    
 *    err:
 *      The OSStatus to return a text string for.
 *  
 *  Result:
 *    A const char* string corresponding to the given OSStatus
 *  
 *  Availability:
 *    Mac OS X:         in version 10.4 and later in CoreServices.framework
 *    CarbonLib:        not available
 *    Non-Carbon CFM:   not available
 */
extern const char * 
GetMacOSStatusErrorString(OSStatus err)                       AVAILABLE_MAC_OS_X_VERSION_10_4_AND_LATER;
 
/*
 *  GetMacOSStatusCommentString()
 *  
 *  Summary:
 *    Returns a const char* string which corresponds to the descriptive
 *    string for the given OSStatus code.
 *  
 *  Discussion:
 *    This function returns a text string which corresponds to a
 *    comment for the given OSStatus code, based on the errors in
 *    MacErrors.h.  For example, GetMacOSStatusConstantString( -43 )
 *    returns "File not found", which is the text representation for
 *    the error constant -43.  This function is useful if you want to
 *    get or print out ( for debugging purposes only ) a useful
 *    description for a given OSStatus error.  If no string is
 *    available for the given constant, then the empty string "" is
 *    returned. If no string is available for the given constant, then
 *    the empty string "" is returned.  Some error values have multiple
 *    meanings; in those cases the multiple meanings are all returned
 *    seperated by '/'es.
 *  
 *  Mac OS X threading:
 *    Thread safe
 *  
 *  Parameters:
 *    
 *    err:
 *      The OSStatus to return a text string for.
 *  
 *  Result:
 *    A const char* string corresponding to the given OSStatus
 *  
 *  Availability:
 *    Mac OS X:         in version 10.4 and later in CoreServices.framework
 *    CarbonLib:        not available
 *    Non-Carbon CFM:   not available
 */
extern const char * 
GetMacOSStatusCommentString(OSStatus err)                     AVAILABLE_MAC_OS_X_VERSION_10_4_AND_LATER;