## Tcl8.6.0/Tk8.6.0 Documentation > Tcl C API, version 8.6.0 > SetErrno

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  NAME
    Tcl_SetErrno, Tcl_GetErrno, Tcl_ErrnoId, Tcl_ErrnoMsg — manipulate errno to store and retrieve error codes
  SYNOPSIS
    #include <tcl8.6/tcl.h>
    void
    Tcl_SetErrno(errorCode)
    int
    Tcl_GetErrno()
    const char *
    Tcl_ErrnoId()
    const char *
    Tcl_ErrnoMsg(errorCode)
  ARGUMENTS
  DESCRIPTION
  KEYWORDS

### NAME

Tcl_SetErrno, Tcl_GetErrno, Tcl_ErrnoId, Tcl_ErrnoMsg — manipulate errno to store and retrieve error codes

### SYNOPSIS

#include <tcl8.6/tcl.h>
void
Tcl_SetErrno(errorCode)
int
Tcl_GetErrno()
const char *
Tcl_ErrnoId()
const char *
Tcl_ErrnoMsg(errorCode)

### ARGUMENTS

int errorCode (in)
  A POSIX error code such as ENOENT.

### DESCRIPTION

Tcl_SetErrno and Tcl_GetErrno provide portable access to the errno variable, which is used to record a POSIX error code after system calls and other operations such as Tcl_Gets. These procedures are necessary because global variable accesses cannot be made across module boundaries on some platforms.

Tcl_SetErrno sets the errno variable to the value of the errorCode argument C procedures that wish to return error information to their callers via errno should call Tcl_SetErrno rather than setting errno directly.

Tcl_GetErrno returns the current value of errno. Procedures wishing to access errno should call this procedure instead of accessing errno directly.

Tcl_ErrnoId and Tcl_ErrnoMsg return string representations of errno values. Tcl_ErrnoId returns a machine-readable textual identifier such as “EACCES” that corresponds to the current value of errno. Tcl_ErrnoMsg returns a human-readable string such as “permission denied” that corresponds to the value of its errorCode argument. The errorCode argument is typically the value returned by Tcl_GetErrno. The strings returned by these functions are statically allocated and the caller must not free or modify them.

### KEYWORDS

errno, error code, global variables
Copyright © 1996 Sun Microsystems, Inc.