Re: Useless/Interesting Error Messages

[legato]

I have two favorites:

1. In Linux, in single-user mode, the login system isn't working. Therefore, when you try to use logout or exit, you get:

   You don't exist.  Go Away.
   

2. I can't remember where this one occurred, as I've only seen it once. The app did error messages like 'Error 0x0A : bad usage' or something. I got this once:

   Error 0xDEADBEEF : Unknown fatal error
   

I've always enjoyed clever or amusing error messages, and I try to include them in my code. The problem is, I'm neither clever nor amusing. My best message is probably in code that intelligently guesses what certain data should be -- since it is a guess, I needed to warn (and log) that such data could be inaccurate. Phrasing failed me, until I came up with this (now in production code):

Unable to find valid source data: pulling it from my ass.

I love working for small shops... ;-)