How do I deal with placeholders for Win32 error messages?

David Heffernan Published at Dev

David Heffernan

I would like to present meaningful error messages when my program encounters Win32 errors. I call GetLastError, and then FormatMessage. But some of the error messages contain placeholders. For instance, ERROR_BAD_EXE_FORMAT has the text:

%1 is not a valid Win32 application.

Presumably, the %1 is meant to be replaced by the name of the module which is not valid. How can I effect that replacement?

Note that I would ideally like a general solution because I note that there are many errors with placeholders. I can see the following messages in the documentation:

The wrong diskette is in the drive. Insert %2 (Volume Serial Number: %3) into drive %1.
The operating system cannot run %1.
This version of %1 is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system information and then contact the software publisher.
The image file %1 is signed, unable to modify.
The system cannot find message text for message number 0x%1 in the message file for %2.
... and so on.

David Heffernan

I think Raymond Chen effectively answers the question in a comment on his blog where he writes:

It bugs me too that system error messages contain %1 insertions that you just have to "know" on a case-by-case basis.

Collected from the Internet

Please contact [email protected] to delete if infringement.

edited at2021-02-6

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