Most systems define error messages by integer-sized status values. Each status value corresponds to some error message text that should be expressed in the user's own language. The capability to import a status value as an exception permits the DCE Threads exception-returning interface to raise or handle system-defined errors as well as programmer-defined exceptions.
An example of importing an error status into an exception is as follows:
exc_set_status (&parity_error, EPARITY);
The parity_error exception can then be raised and handled like any other exception.