经常在调用linux 系统api 的时候会出现一些错误，比方说使用open() write() creat()之类的函数有些时候会返回-1，也就是调用失败，这个时候往往需要知道失败的原因。这个时候使用errno这个全局变量就相当有用了。

在程序代 码中包含 #include <errno.h>,然后每次程序调用失败的时候，系统会自动用用错误代码填充errno这个全局变量，这样你只需要读errno这个全局变量就可以获得失败原因了。

 1 #include <stdio.h>
 2 #include <string.h>
 3 #include <errno.h>
 4 int main(void)
 6     int fd;
 7     extern int errno;
 9     if((fd = open("/dev/dsp",O_WRONLY)) < 0) {
10        printf("errno=%d\n",errno);
11     }
13 　　exit(0);

如果dsp设备忙的话errno值将是16。

errno.h中定义的错误代码值如下：
查看错误代码errno是调试程序的一个重要方法。当linux C api函数发生异常时,一般会将errno变量(需include errno.h)赋一个整数值,不同的值表示不同的含义,可以通过查看该值推测出错的原因。在实际编程中用这一招解决了不少原本看来莫名其妙的问题。比较 麻烦的是每次都要去linux源代码里面查找错误代码的含义，现在把它贴出来，以后需要查时就来这里看了。
以下来自linux 2.4.20-18的内核代码中的/usr/include/asm/errno.h
#ifndef _I386_ERRNO_H
#define _I386_ERRNO_H
#define EPERM   1 /* Operation not permitted */
#define ENOENT   2 /* No such file or directory */
#define ESRCH   3 /* No such process */
#define EINTR   4 /* Interrupted system call */
#define EIO       5 /* I/O error */
#define ENXIO   6 /* No such device or address */
#define E2BIG   7 /* Arg list too long */
#define ENOEXEC   8 /* Exec format error */
#define EBADF   9 /* Bad file number */
#define ECHILD 10 /* No child processes */
#define EAGAIN 11 /* Try again */
#define ENOMEM 12 /* Out of memory */
#define EACCES 13 /* Permission denied */
#define EFAULT 14 /* Bad address */
#define ENOTBLK 15 /* Block device required */
#define EBUSY 16 /* Device or resource busy */
#define EEXIST 17 /* File exists */
#define EXDEV 18 /* Cross-device link */
#define ENODEV 19 /* No such device */
#define ENOTDIR 20 /* Not a directory */
#define EISDIR 21 /* Is a directory */
#define EINVAL 22 /* Invalid argument */
#define ENFILE 23 /* File table overflow */
#define EMFILE 24 /* Too many open files */
#define ENOTTY 25 /* Not a typewriter */
#define ETXTBSY 26 /* Text file busy */
#define EFBIG 27 /* File too large */
#define ENOSPC 28 /* No space left on device */
#define ESPIPE 29 /* Illegal seek */
#define EROFS 30 /* Read-only file system */
#define EMLINK 31 /* Too many links */
#define EPIPE 32 /* Broken pipe */
#define EDOM 33 /* Math argument out of domain of func */
#define ERANGE 34 /* Math result not representable */
#define EDEADLK 35 /* Resource deadlock would occur */
#define ENAMETOOLONG 36 /* File name too long */
#define ENOLCK 37 /* No record locks available */
#define ENOSYS 38 /* Function not implemented */
#define ENOTEMPTY 39 /* Directory not empty */
#define ELOOP 40 /* Too many symbolic links encountered */
#define EWOULDBLOCK EAGAIN /* Operation would block */
#define ENOMSG 42 /* No message of desired type */
#define EIDRM 43 /* Identifier removed */
#define ECHRNG 44 /* Channel number out of range */
#define EL2NSYNC 45 /* Level 2 not synchronized */
#define EL3HLT 46 /* Level 3 halted */
#define EL3RST 47 /* Level 3 reset */
#define ELNRNG 48 /* Link number out of range */
#define EUNATCH 49 /* Protocol driver not attached */
#define ENOCSI 50 /* No CSI structure available */
#define EL2HLT 51 /* Level 2 halted */
#define EBADE 52 /* Invalid exchange */
#define EBADR 53 /* Invalid request descriptor */
#define EXFULL 54 /* Exchange full */
#define ENOANO 55 /* No anode */
#define EBADRQC 56 /* Invalid request code */
#define EBADSLT 57 /* Invalid slot */
#define EDEADLOCK EDEADLK
#define EBFONT 59 /* Bad font file format */
#define ENOSTR 60 /* Device not a stream */
#define ENODATA 61 /* No data available */
#define ETIME 62 /* Timer expired */
#define ENOSR 63 /* Out of streams resources */
#define ENONET 64 /* Machine is not on the network */
#define ENOPKG 65 /* Package not installed */
#define EREMOTE 66 /* Object is remote */
#define ENOLINK 67 /* Link has been severed */
#define EADV 68 /* Advertise error */
#define ESRMNT 69 /* Srmount error */
#define ECOMM 70 /* Communication error on send */
#define EPROTO 71 /* Protocol error */
#define EMULTIHOP 72 /* Multihop attempted */
#define EDOTDOT 73 /* RFS specific error */
#define EBADMSG 74 /* Not a data message */
#define EOVERFLOW 75 /* Value too large for defined data type */
#define ENOTUNIQ 76 /* Name not unique on network */
#define EBADFD 77 /* File descriptor in bad state */
#define EREMCHG 78 /* Remote address changed */
#define ELIBACC 79 /* Can not access a needed shared library */
#define ELIBBAD 80 /* Accessing a corrupted shared library */
#define ELIBSCN 81 /* .lib section in a.out corrupted */
#define ELIBMAX 82 /* Attempting to link in too many shared libraries */
#define ELIBEXEC 83 /* Cannot exec a shared library directly */
#define EILSEQ 84 /* Illegal byte sequence */
#define ERESTART 85 /* Interrupted system call should be restarted */
#define ESTRPIPE 86 /* Streams pipe error */
#define EUSERS 87 /* Too many users */
#define ENOTSOCK 88 /* Socket operation on non-socket */
#define EDESTADDRREQ 89 /* Destination address required */
#define EMSGSIZE 90 /* Message too long */
#define EPROTOTYPE 91 /* Protocol wrong type for socket */
#define ENOPROTOOPT 92 /* Protocol not available */
#define EPROTONOSUPPORT 93 /* Protocol not supported */
#define ESOCKTNOSUPPORT 94 /* Socket type not supported */
#define EOPNOTSUPP 95 /* Operation not supported on transport endpoint */
#define EPFNOSUPPORT 96 /* Protocol family not supported */
#define EAFNOSUPPORT 97 /* Address family not supported by protocol */
#define EADDRINUSE 98 /* Address already in use */
#define EADDRNOTAVAIL 99 /* Cannot assign requested address */
#define ENETDOWN 100 /* Network is down */
#define ENETUNREACH 101 /* Network is unreachable */
#define ENETRESET 102 /* Network dropped connection because of reset */
#define ECONNABORTED 103 /* Software caused connection abort */
#define ECONNRESET 104 /* Connection reset by peer */
#define ENOBUFS 105 /* No buffer space available */
#define EISCONN 106 /* Transport endpoint is already connected */
#define ENOTCONN 107 /* Transport endpoint is not connected */
#define ESHUTDOWN 108 /* Cannot send after transport endpoint shutdown */
#define ETOOMANYREFS 109 /* Too many references: cannot splice */
#define ETIMEDOUT 110 /* Connection timed out */
#define ECONNREFUSED 111 /* Connection refused */
#define EHOSTDOWN 112 /* Host is down */
#define EHOSTUNREACH 113 /* No route to host */
#define EALREADY 114 /* Operation already in progress */
#define EINPROGRESS 115 /* Operation now in progress */
#define ESTALE 116 /* Stale NFS file handle */
#define EUCLEAN 117 /* Structure needs cleaning */
#define ENOTNAM 118 /* Not a XENIX named type file */
#define ENAVAIL 119 /* No XENIX semaphores available */
#define EISNAM 120 /* Is a named type file */
#define EREMOTEIO 121 /* Remote I/O error */
#define EDQUOT 122 /* Quota exceeded */
#define ENOMEDIUM 123 /* No medium found */
#define EMEDIUMTYPE 124 /* Wrong medium type */
#endif

同时也可以使用strerror（）来自己翻译
如：
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <errno.h>
int main(void)
　　int fd;
　　extern int errno;
　　if((fd = open("/dev/dsp",O_WRONLY)) < 0) {
　　　　printf("errno=%d\n",errno);
　　　　char * mesg = strerror(errno);
　　　　printf("Mesg:%s\n",mesg);
　　}
　　exit(0);

dsp设备忙的话将输出如下：
errno=16
Mesg:Device or resource busy
转自：https://www.douban.com/note/165931644/
-----------------perror和sterror的区别-----------------
perror() 和 strerror() 以一种直观的方式打印出错误信息，对于调试程序和编写优秀的程序非常有用。

下面是perror() 与 strerror() 的使用范例及区别：

perror()原型：

#include <stdio.h>

void perror(const char *s);

其中，perror()的参数s 是用户提供的字符串。当调用perror()时，它输出这个字符串，后面跟着一个冒号和空格，然后是基于当前errno的值进行的错误类型描述（也就是刚刚内核代码宏定义里面的那一长串字符）。

strerror()原型：

#include <string.h>

char * strerror(int errnum);

这个函数将errno的值作为参数，并返回一个描述错误的字符串。
 1     /*rename.c*/  
 3     #include<stdio.h>  
 4     #include <string.h>  
 5     #include <errno.h>  
 7     int main(int argc,char **argv)  
 9         char path[]="./first.c";  
10         char newpath[] = "./second.c";  
11         char newpathnot[] = "./gong/suo.c";  
12         extern int errno;  
14         if( rename(path,newpathnot) == 0)  
15         {  
16             printf("the file %s was moved to %s.",path,newpathnot);  
17         }  
18         else  
19         {  
20             printf("Can't move the file %s.\n",path);  
21             printf("errno:%d\n",errno);  
22             printf("ERR:%s\n",strerror(errno));  
23             perror("Err");  
24         }  
26         if(rename(path,newpath) == 0)  
27             printf("the file %s was moved to %s.\n",path,newpath);  
28         else  
29         {  
30             printf("Can't move the file %s.\n",path);  
31             printf("errno:%d\n",errno);  
32             printf("ERR:%s\n",strerror(errno));  
33         }  
35         return 0;  
36     }  
39     gcc rename.c -o rename  
40     ./rename  
42     Can't move the file ./first.c.  
43     errno:2  
44     ERR:No such file or directory  
45     Err: No such file or directory  
46     the file ./first.c was moved to ./second.c  
strerror（）方法与perror()的用法十分相似。

　　先谈谈perror（）的用法，这个方法用于将上一条语句（方法）执行后的错误打印到标准输出上。一般情况下（没有使用重定向的话），就是输出到控制台上。

　　但是，如果我需要了解另外一个进程的某一个方法执行的错误，或者更briefly，我就希望将错误打印到一个文件里面，perror()就不太合适了！

　　为了实现我刚刚说到的要求，我们首先要将错误放到一个字符串里面。这个时候，strerror（）就合适了！

strerror(errno)

　　首先，系统会根据上一条语句的执行错误情况，将errno赋值.。关于这点，我们首先明白两点。第一，errno是一个系统变量，是不需要我们赋值或者声明的。第二，errno是一个int类型的变量，而且其中的值对应一种特定错误类型

　　然后，关于strerror（）本身，可以这么理解。顾名思义，strerror=string+error，就是将errno值翻译成描述错误类型的string语句！
　　从上面的结果可以看出，perror(s)，实际上是会输出s: strerror(errno)这样的形式，其中strerror(errno)表示errno对应的错误字符串。
转自：http://blog.csdn.net/callinglove/article/details/8301789