Message files

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Basics

The compiler uses the files in fpc/compiler/msg to output translated error message. The default one, errore.msg, is compiled into the compiler, so it will work without any message file available.

To add a new message, find the appropriate section (parser_, scan_ etc.) in errore.msg and add the new message at the end of this section with a new succeeding message id. Then rebuild the built-in message tables with

cd fpc/compiler; make msg

and commit the resulting msg*.inc files as well as the changed errore.msg file. The translators are responsible to add the new messages to the translated files.

Translating

In order to get a starting point for updating the message files of other languages, one can use the program msgdif from fpc/compiler/utils. It compares two message files and outputs problems as well as a file new.msg, which you can take as a starting point for an update.

Example:

msgdif errore.msg errorr.msg

From the Free Pascal wiki, page "Message files", as it stood on 2020-12-28 after a change by E-ric, out of the wiki's dump of 2024-05-26. Copyright stays with the author who wrote it, according to the old wiki's Licensing page. If you have concerns about this material, message the admin.