Paul Eggert wrote: > On 01/10/13 13:40, Jim Meyering wrote: >> - error (0, errno, _("reading %s"), quote (src_name)); >> + error (0, errno, _("failed to read %s"), quote (src_name)); > > Yes, that's fine too. It also avoids the gerund. > > A terser possibility, which I've used elsewhere, > is something like this: > > error (0, errno, _("%s: read failed"), quotearg_colon (src_name));
If all else were equal, I'd have a slight preference for your wording, but while the diagnostic itself is 3 bytes shorter, the overall line length is 14 bytes longer than the original: 1 error (0, errno, _("reading %s"), quote (src_name)); 2 error (0, errno, _("failed to read %s"), quote (src_name)); 3 error (0, errno, _("%s: read failed"), quotearg_colon (src_name)); and the new name, quotearg_colon may require inclusion of "quotearg.h". The problem is that "standard" use of error is getting too long, and a naive conversion would lead to split lines and a decrease in readability. This makes me want a two-argument wrapper to be used like this: wwarn (_("%s: read failed"), src_name); That seems more readable, and would not induce any line splitting. (we can't use "warn", so I made up "wwarn") We'd also have to adjust the syntax-checking rules that examine diagnostics in the string arguments of error calls.