We have really devolved. In VMS (later OpenVMS, which change didn’t help much) messages have the following format:
%facility-s-identification, text
Example:
-RMS-E-FNF, file not found
-SYSTEM-W-NOSUCHFILE, no such file
Facility is an OS component, in this case the file system.
s is severity, in this case Warning.
identification is the message id.
You can capture (trap) the $STATUS in your script as a unique hex number and process it accordingly without failing the script. You can also get further help on the message.
All this was possible in the early 1980s.
More detail here: http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/73final/documentation/pdf/ovms_73_sys_mes.pdf
WRTHOMBLK, I/O error rewriting home block