Message text

The message text might include conversion characters for the variable fields that are converted when the message is printed or displayed, and control characters that affect the message format. The conversion characters start with a percent sign (%) and the control characters start with a backslash (\). These are all standard notations for the C language print function. The messages might also contain comments which start with /* and end with */.

In the following simulated message, the control character \n forces a new line to print and the string variables, represented by %s, are converted in the order they are passed from the program.

9999 I "Command %s received from user %s\n"