Re: [PATCH] Error message clarification

[James Youngman]

On 3/31/07, address@hidden <address@hidden> wrote:
> When a predicate is not syntactically correct, the find parser
> will currently say:
>
>   "invalid predicate `%s'"
>
> which IMO obscures the fact that the predicate NAME may be alright, but
> the number or format of parameters didn't match.

How about this patch, which gives a more specific error?


$ cvs -z3 diff -upN find/tree.c
Index: find/tree.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/findutils/findutils/find/tree.c,v
retrieving revision 1.29
diff -u -p -r1.29 tree.c
--- find/tree.c 7 Mar 2007 23:18:38 -0000       1.29
+++ find/tree.c 31 Mar 2007 18:13:24 -0000
@@ -1337,19 +1337,26 @@ build_expression_tree(int argc, char *ar
      oldi = i;
      if (!(*(parse_entry->parser_func)) (parse_entry, argv, &i))
       {
-         if (oldi == i)
+         if (argv[i])
           {
-             error (1, 0, _("invalid predicate `%s'"),
-                    predicate_name);
+             if ( (ARG_SPECIAL_PARSE == parse_entry->type) && (i == oldi) )
+               {
+                 /* The special parse function spat out the
+                  * predicate.  It must be invalid, or not tasty.
+                  */
+                 error (1, 0, _("invalid predicate `%s'"),
+                        argv[i], predicate_name);
+               }
+             else
+               {
+                 error (1, 0, _("invalid argument `%s' to `%s'"),
+                        argv[i], predicate_name);
+               }
           }
         else
           {
-             if (argv[i] == NULL)
-               /* Command line option requires an argument */
-               error (1, 0, _("missing argument to `%s'"), predicate_name);
-             else
-               error (1, 0, _("invalid argument `%s' to `%s'"),
-                      argv[i], predicate_name);
+             /* Command line option requires an argument */
+             error (1, 0, _("missing argument to `%s'"), predicate_name);
           }
       }
      else