VARKON Version 1.15 1997-10-16

### VARKON_ERM

Environment variable
Description
Environment variable used by VARKON to locate files with error messages. Error messages are kept in files named XX.ERM where XX is a two letter combination describing what part of the system the file is related to.
GE.ERM for example includes error messages related to geometrical routines.
When an error occurs the routine involved pushes an error code onto the error stack and returns to its caller with negative status. This may cause the calling routine to push another error code onto the stack and so on. When control finally returns to the user a number of error codes may be in the error stack and VARKON will then report them all together with texts from their ERM-files in a list-window. The idea is to give the user not only a message about where the error initially occured but also some sort of error traceback describing the error in more and more general terms.
Error codes consist of two letters followed by four digits. GE7152 is an error code from a geometrical routine. The corresponding error message file is $VARKON_ERM/GE.ERM. In this file there is a line named 715 2 with the text "No intersect, lines are parallell" describing the error. The last digit in the error code is used as a severity code. There are four levels of severity 1 - 4.
Severity 1 are warnings only and are pushed to the error stack without any notice (not reported).
Severity 2 are normal recoverable errors and are reported to the user.
Severity 3 are more serious but usually recoverable errors also reported to the user.
Severity 4 are unrecoverable errors and usually make the system exit or even crash
Syntax
setenv VARKON_ERM path ! UNIX C-shell (csh)
or
VARKON_ERM=path ! UNIX shell (sh)
export VARKON_ERM
or
SET VARKON_ERM=path ! DOS shell
Where path is a valid directory specification.
Comments
If VARKON_ERM is not defined a hard coded default will be used instead.
If no ERM-files are found in $VARKON_ERM the error code is reported but no message text.

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