> Not at the moment, but my memory is telling me that I *have* seen such
> things before.
I too could have sworn that I'd come across alphanumeric codes several
times. But when trying to remember and search for specific examples I
couldn't come up with any.
Googling for [alphanumeric error codes] nailed it. They pop up in embedded devices with simple alphanumeric displays!
In addition, I blundered across the DocBook documentation in this search. DocBook is an XML format for technical documentation, and of course one of the things such books have to document is -- errors. They provide four elements to mark up error descriptions:
DocBook provides four elements for identifying the parts of an error message: errorcode, for the alphanumeric error code (e.g., “–2”); errorname, for the symbolic name of the error (e.g., “ENOENT”); errortext, for the text of the error message (e.g., “file not found”); and errortype, for the error type (e.g., “recoverable”).
Maybe we should adopt these names. DocBook has undergone a long evolution already.
category
class-code
class-title
subclass-code
Subclass-title
All these things are determined by the SQLSTATE, so I don't see much reason for lugging them around in status objects.
How bad is 'mnemonic? It may be slightly torturous to spell for
non-native speakers, but probably palatable.
Probably worse for native speakers, actually. Non-native speakers see the word and then hear it; native speakers hear the word and are shocked by the spelling.
John Cowan
http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan xxxxxx@ccil.orgSaid Agatha Christie / To E. Philips Oppenheim
"Who is this Hemingway? / Who is this Proust?
Who is this Vladimir / Whatchamacallum,
This neopostrealist / Rabble?" she groused.
--George Starbuck, Pith and Vinegar