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Failed System Calls (cont)

Another library function to make it easy to report errors and exit
  • error(Status, ErrNum, Format, Expressions, ...)
  • print error message using prog name, Format and Expressions
  • if Status is non-zero, invoke exit(Status) after printing message
  • if ErrNum is non-zero, also print standard system error message
Example: 

error(1, errno, "Can't do %s", Something);
vs
perror("Can't do it");
exit(1);
vs
fprintf(stderr, "Can't do %s", Something);
exit(1);