char *strerror( char *str )
- prototype in string.h - str should contain your customized error message to which a system error message will be appended - allows you to generate customized error messages, returning a pointer to a null-terminated string containing an error message - if str is NULL, the return value contains the most recently generated system error message; this string is null-terminated - if str is not NULL, the return value contains, a colon, a space, the most recently generated system error message, and a newline; with length of str being 94 characters or less - this function generates the error string but does NOT print it - for accurate error-handling, strerror should be called as soon as a library routine generates an error return