Numbering compiler error messages?

[Andrea Fontana]

On Friday, 28 March 2014 at 08:25:05 UTC, Johannes Pfau wrote:
> An idea stolen from C#:
>
> How about adding a small 'error-message ID' like DPL00042 to 
> every
> compiler message? This makes it easier to search for 
> information about
> the error. If tools want to handle certain compiler errors then
> they can grep for the message-ID instead of the complete 
> message.
>
> I thought of adding a wiki page, 
> wiki.dlang.org/Compiler_Messages to
> keep a list of all messages. It's then possible to add examples,
> detailed information how to resolve an error and links to 
> further
> information (e.g. changelog entry for error/warning/deprecated 
> message)
> to that page.
>
> I could file a pull request which does this for all existing 
> error
> messages, but it requires contributors to follow a small 
> protocol
> for future error messages as we need to make sure we do not 
> assign one
> ID to different messages:
>
> If you want to introduce a new error message:
> Before even opening a pull request,
> * go to  wiki.dlang.org/Compiler_Messages
> * pick next free ID
> * add it to the page with status pending
> * Once stuff is merged update the description/status on the 
> wiki page
>
> As an example how this could work, search for CS1002.
> So do we want this?

There's another advantage. If you want to change error message 
(or add localization like in visual c++) you still can found what 
the error means.

It should be easier for IDE to parse and give suggestions or 
redirect to an help page to solve the problem.