Most of the functions in the libkate API return an integer value so errors can be flagged for the client code to check.

When a function succeeds, the return code will usually be 0, or in some cases positive, when extra status information needs to be returned. An error will be marked by returning a negative value. See each function's documentation more information.

It is strongly recommended that the client code checks return codes for errors.

These are the error codes that the libkate API can return:

• KATE_E_NOT_FOUND The item that was requested was not found
• KATE_E_INVALID_PARAMETER A parameter passed to the libkate API was invalid. This can be a NULL parameter, a negative granulepos or time, etc
• KATE_E_OUT_OF_MEMORY There was not enough memory to perform the requested operation
• KATE_E_BAD_GRANULE A negative granule was encountered, or a a granule decreased when it should not have
• KATE_E_INIT An object was initialized twice, or not initialized when it should have been
• KATE_E_BAD_PACKET An invalid value was read from a Kate packet. This may mean the stream is corrupted, or is not a Kate stream
• KATE_E_TEXT A text handled by libkate was found to be invalid. This can be an invalid character or sequence of characters in the text, or trying to read and/or write beyond the size of the string.
• KATE_E_LIMIT An limit was exceeded (a string too long, a pixel value above what can fit in a bitmap's bit depth, etc)
• KATE_E_VERSION The bitstream version is not supported by this version of libkate
• KATE_E_NOT_KATE The packet passed the the libkate API is not a Kate packet
• KATE_E_BAD_TAG A tag passed to the comment API does not comply with Vorbis comment rules
• KATE_E_IMPL The requested operation is not implemented