Abstract: Method and apparatus in a computer system for communicating messages between message sending and message receiving processes, without the need of providing a system registry of receiving processes and message types. A process wishing to receive messages of type X creates a named pipe having name X. A process wishing to send a message of type X to other interested processes in the system opens every instance of the name pipe X and writes the message to each instance. The system automatically alerts the receiving process on the other end of a pipe instance and, in response, the receiving process reads the message from the named pipe.

Abstract: An error log request is generated by a component of a communication software system. The error log request is analyzed and compared to entries in one of a plurality of records in a message look-up table. If there is a match between the fields of the error log request and selected entries of a record in the look-up table, a user message request is generated which facilitates the display of a pre-existing user friendly message as modified with data included in the generated user message request.

Abstract: The invention relates to the retrieval of data records from a computer system. A user may retrieve selected error data records by specifying criteria and activating an error services utility. Only the error record data which satisfies the specified criteria will be printed or displayed. The user may also retrieve selected message data records by specifying criteria and activating an message services utility. The user may specify the display of selected messages which were generated by a specified component within the computer system. Moreover, after displaying a selected message, the user may request the system to display more detailed information regarding the displayed message.