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| Chapter 2 UNIX Commands |

## fmtmsg

    fmtmsg [options] text

Print `text` as part of a formatted error message on stderr (or on system console). `text` must be quoted as a single argument. fmtmsg is used in shell scripts to print messages in a standard format. Messages display as follows:

>     label:	severity:		text
>     TO FIX:	action		tag

You can define the MSGVERB variable to select which parts of the message to print. Each part is described with the options below.

### Options

-a `action`

  A string describing the first action to take in recovering the error. The string "TO FIX:" precedes the `action` string.

-c `source`

  The source of the problem, where `source` is one of hard (hardware), soft (software), or firm (firmware).

-l `label`

  Identify the message source with a text `label`, often of the form `file`:`command`.

-s `severity`

  How serious the condition is. `severity` is one of halt, error, warn, or info.

-t `tag`

  Another string identifier for the message.

-u `types`

  Classify the message as one or more `types` (separated by commas). `types` can be one of the keywords appl, util, or opsys (meaning that the problem comes respectively from an application, utility, or the kernel), either of the keywords recov or nrecov (application will or won't recover), print (message displays on `stderr`), and console (message displays on system console).

Reference: fmt |  | Reference: fold