"Exit code" meaning

[Bhavin Shah_2]

Hello All,

Can someone help with the list of exit code that appear in HP-UX & the meaning of the same.

Thanks & Regards
Bhavin Shah

[Andrey Tumanov]

There are no standard exit codes that all applications or commands
conform to. Most exit codes are hard-coded in source code and are not
easily available. The man page normally would explain the "return values" of a certain
function.

[Torsten.]

The exit code (not only in HP-UX) is a value given from the application to the environment.

The meaning is different from one application to another, so you have to read the documentation / man page for it.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

Convention dictates that a zero exit status indicates success whereas a non-zero exit status indicates failure.

Regards!

...JRF...

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Your question really has no meaning because exit codes mean exactly what the programmer intended - no more and no less. By convention, an exit code of 0 means all is well; also, by convention, exit codes match the value that errno was set to on the last failed system call (examine /usr/include/sys/errno.h) but really there is no hard and fast rule about the meaning of exit codes.

[MarkSyder]

To a great extent this is up to the individual programmer, but some programmers will adhere to the standard error messages in /usr/include/errno.h. E.g. 0 indicates success and 2 indicates file does not exist.

Mark Syder (like the drink but spelt different)

[Chan 007]

Hi Bhavin,

Check this file has exit codes.

/usr/include/sysexits.h, this file can be view'd /cat

Chan

[Bhavin Shah_2]

Thanks for the reply.

I actually meant that while carrying out patch installation we get exit codes.

eg. PHSS_XXXX will be excluded with "exit code 3".

I would like to know how many such exit codes exit while carrying out such activity & what does that mean.

Regards
Bhavin Shah

[Torsten.]

Watch the logfile while installing something with swinstall or review the swagent logs in /var/adm/sw.

This will give you really a lot of information why a patch was excluded.

[MarkSyder]

Assuming the developers of swinstall used the standard codes in /usr/include/sys/errno.h (and I would be surprised if they didn't) error code 3 means "No such process". As advised earlier, you will need to read the swinstall log to find out which process.

Mark

[Torsten.]

In fact, the exit codes here are "SD internal" and coming from swconfig. see man swconfig.
You will find more detailed information in the swagent.log file.

Here are the codes:

0 (default) No identifiers are attached to messages.
1 Adds identifiers to ERROR messages only.
2 Adds identifiers to ERROR and WARNING messages.
3 Adds identifiers to ERROR, WARNING, and NOTE
messages.
4 Adds identifiers to ERROR, WARNING, NOTE, and
certain other informational messages.


Here is an example from my log, a patch cannot be installed, because my system is too old and not compatible:



NOTE: The "checkinstall" script for "PHSS_30183" gave an "exclude"
return (exit code "3"). The script location was
"/var/tmp/BAAa16565/catalog/PHSS_30183/pfiles/checkinstall".
NOTE: This software will be excluded from further processing.
NOTE: This product will not be installed because it is incompatible with
the microprocessor (CPU) on the destination system. It requires a
processor that can execute PA-RISC version 2.0 object code.
If you need additional information about this error message, contact
your HP Country Response Center or other HP-UX software support
personnel.

[Fabio Ettore]

Hi,

like wrote by ITRC people you have to look in swagent.log file to understand the exact reason about the failure and not concentrate on the exit code. Anyway Torsten gave a good point with exit code meanings on SD-UX.

Please don't forget to assign points if you think people helped you.

If you are interested more then post the error message here.

Good luck...
Fabio