From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:33489) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZvjaG-0002Ix-1f for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 09 Nov 2015 05:21:59 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZvjaF-0001B6-5m for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 09 Nov 2015 05:21:56 -0500 From: Markus Armbruster References: <1446909925-12201-1-git-send-email-drjones@redhat.com> <87twovpqg1.fsf@blackfin.pond.sub.org> Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2015 11:21:44 +0100 In-Reply-To: (Peter Maydell's message of "Mon, 9 Nov 2015 10:01:12 +0000") Message-ID: <87oaf3jww7.fsf@blackfin.pond.sub.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] hw/arm/virt: error_report cleanups List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Peter Maydell Cc: Andrew Jones , qemu-arm@nongnu.org, QEMU Developers Peter Maydell writes: > On 9 November 2015 at 07:44, Markus Armbruster wrote: >> For consistency, error messages should be a phrase, not a full sentence, >> let alone a paraphraph. > > This is in direct conflict with wanting them to be actually useful > to users :-( I appreciate your drive for useful error messages. Judging from the error messages we got, it's a rare thing. Let me rephrase. The error message proper (the thing emitted by error_report()) should be a phrase, and it should be short and to the point. It can be followed by hints. Compare: qemu-system-arm: Unable to determine GIC version supported by host. KVM acceleration is probably not supported. and qemu-system-arm: Unable to determine GIC version supported by host KVM acceleration is probably not supported I prefer the latter. The error message proper is short and to the point. The hint points to the most probable cause. Sensible line lengths. By the way, the error.h API supports this message + hints convention since commit 50b7b00.