Readme File
Abstract
The murmur message system is a tool for the production and management of
message reporting. It acts as a central reporter / repository for messages
generated from applications across a distributed system. Message generation,
reporting, logging, and displaying are part of the murmur system. Its
usefulness ranges from software product development and maintenance to
system level shakedown and diagnostics.
"murmur_client" is the client component of the murmur_kit bundled product. murmur_kit also includes a server component called murmur that should be used with the murmur client software.
Applications use murmur_client to associate message mnemonics and message text
with 32 bit message codes. In a manner similar to the VMS MESSAGE Utility, a
message's facility, number, and severity are encoded into these 32 bit numbers.
These codes are used by an application's function library to return conditional
status. Callers of the function library use the returned murmur status codes
to determine if the functions completed successfully and can send the codes to
a murmur server to be translated into associated message text and displayed.
The murmur_client routine library consists of a set of routines for sending
message codes or groups of message codes called (message stacks), to the
murmur server for translation and display. The murmur client routines send
local time, time zone, node name, process id, and application name information
along with each message code that is sent to the murmur server for display.
Integer, unsigned integer, single precision floating point, or character string
arguments can be sent along with the message code as long as the message text
associated with the code was defined with the appropriate embedded printf
directives (e.g. %d, %u, %o, %x, %f, %s). The server incorporates the value
of the given arguments at run-time into the message text strings prior to
displaying the messages.
The client call can also specify that up to a 132 length character string be
appended for display with the message. This is useful to supply specific
routine location information for debugging (e.g. the routine name and line
number where the error occurred), or any other information that is desirable
to add to the message at run-time. Clients can also send uncoded pure text
messages to the server if sending additional text is desired.
