An error object. Error objects consist of a machine readable error code for for programmatic error handling and a string describing the error. All KIM APIs return kim_errors with the exception of memory deallocation functions and the kim_error_t APIs which return pieces of a kim_error_t object.
Functions which return successfully will return KIM_NO_ERROR (NULL). Because KIM_NO_ERROR does not need to be freed, you may use if-ladders or goto-style error handling when calling the KIM APIs. In addition, kim_error_free() may be called on KIM_NO_ERROR.
- Note:
- Certain kim_error_t objects are preallocated by the libraries avoid exacerbating existing problems while trying to report an error. For example, the out of memory error object is preallocated. It is safe to call kim_error_free() on these errors, although the function may not actually free the object.
By providing an error object rather than a numeric code, the KIM APIs can tailor error strings to the circumstances of the error. So rather than returning error strings like "Client not found in Kerberos database", we can report "'user@REALM' not found in Kerberos database" while still providing the machine readable error KRB5KDC_ERR_C_PRINCIPAL_UNKNOWN.
See KIM Error Reference Documentation for information on specific APIs.
