(This is the documentation for SDL3, which is under heavy development and the API is changing! SDL2 is the current stable version!)

SDL_GetError

Retrieve a message about the last error that occurred on the current thread.

Header File

Defined in SDL_error.h, but apps should use #include <SDL3/SDL.h>

Syntax

const char* SDL_GetError(void);

Return Value

Returns a message with information about the specific error that occurred, or an empty string if there hasn't been an error message set since the last call to SDL_ClearError(). The message is only applicable when an SDL function has signaled an error. You must check the return values of SDL function calls to determine when to appropriately call SDL_GetError().

Remarks

It is possible for multiple errors to occur before calling SDL_GetError(). Only the last error is returned.

The message is only applicable when an SDL function has signaled an error. You must check the return values of SDL function calls to determine when to appropriately call SDL_GetError(). You should not use the results of SDL_GetError() to decide if an error has occurred! Sometimes SDL will set an error string even when reporting success.

SDL will not clear the error string for successful API calls. You must check return values for failure cases before you can assume the error string applies.

Error strings are set per-thread, so an error set in a different thread will not interfere with the current thread's operation.

The returned string is internally allocated and must not be freed by the application.

Version

This function is available since SDL 3.0.0.

Code Examples

if (SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) < 0) {
    // Unrecoverable error, exit here.
    printf("SDL_Init failed: %s\n", SDL_GetError());
}

Note: Although this example uses SDL_Init(), SDL_GetError() provides an error message for any failed SDL operation which supports error reporting, see the wiki page for each particular SDL function.