5.003_23: small typo in perlsyn.pod
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / pod / perldiag.pod
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a0d0e21e 1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (non-trappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
748a9306 18Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
8b1a09fc 19be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that will be
748a9306 20called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
22L<perlfunc/eval>.
a0d0e21e 23
24Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
2ba9eb46 25just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
a0d0e21e 26The symbols C<"%-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
27
28=over 4
29
30=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
31
32(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34if you want to localize a package variable.
35
2ba9eb46 36=item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope
37
38(S) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectively
39eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always
8b1a09fc 40a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
2ba9eb46 41until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
42destroyed.
43
a0d0e21e 44=item "no" not allowed in expression
45
46(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
48
49=item "use" not allowed in expression
50
51(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
53
54=item % may only be used in unpack
55
5f05dabc 56(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
a0d0e21e 57checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
58way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
59
60=item %s (...) interpreted as function
61
62(W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
8b1a09fc 63by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
5f05dabc 64found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
a0d0e21e 65
66=item %s argument is not a HASH element
67
5f05dabc 68(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
a0d0e21e 69
70 $foo{$bar}
71 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
72
5f05dabc 73=item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
74
75(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
76
77 $foo{$bar}
78 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
79
80or a hash slice, such as
81
82 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
83 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
84
a0d0e21e 85=item %s did not return a true value
86
87(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
88it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
89traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
90do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
91
92=item %s found where operator expected
93
94(S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
95sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
96it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
97delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
98
99=item %s had compilation errors.
100
101(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
102
103=item %s has too many errors.
104
105(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
106Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
107
108=item %s matches null string many times
109
110(W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
111regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
112
113=item %s never introduced
114
115(S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
116before it could possibly have been used.
117
118=item %s syntax OK
119
120(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
121
cb1a09d0 122=item %s: Command not found.
123
124(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
8b1a09fc 125of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
cb1a09d0 126into Perl yourself.
127
128=item %s: Expression syntax.
129
130(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
8b1a09fc 131of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
cb1a09d0 132into Perl yourself.
133
134=item %s: Undefined variable.
135
136(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
8b1a09fc 137of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
cb1a09d0 138into Perl yourself.
139
140=item %s: not found
141
8b1a09fc 142(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
143instead of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
cb1a09d0 144into Perl yourself.
145
a0d0e21e 146=item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
147
148(F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
149which provides a race condition that breaks security.
150
151=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
152
153(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
154know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
155
a5f75d66 156=item 500 Server error
157
158See Server error.
159
a0d0e21e 160=item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
161
162(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
163if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
164
165=item @ outside of string
166
2ba9eb46 167(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
a0d0e21e 168the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
169
170=item accept() on closed fd
171
172(W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
173the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
174
175=item Allocation too large: %lx
176
55497cff 177(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
178
179=item Allocation too large
180
181(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes.
a0d0e21e 182
183=item Arg too short for msgsnd
184
185(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
186
748a9306 187=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
188
189(W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
190you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
5f05dabc 191a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
748a9306 192
a0d0e21e 193=item Args must match #! line
194
195(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
196with match the arguments specified on the #! line.
197
198=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric
199
200(W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
201expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
202will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
203
204=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
205
206(D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
207is now heavily deprecated.
208
209=item assertion botched: %s
210
211(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
212
213=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
214
215(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
216
217=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
218
219(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
220must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
221know which context to supply to the right side.
222
223=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
224
225(P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
226be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
227of those arenas.
228
bbce6d69 229=item Attempt to free non-existent shared string
230
231(P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
232optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
233indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
234that can no longer be found in the table.
235
a0d0e21e 236=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
237
238(W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
239routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
240the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
241routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
242it.
243
244=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
245
246(P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
247
248=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
249
250(W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
251would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
252and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
253could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
254SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
255when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
256
b7a902f4 257=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
258
259(W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
8b1a09fc 260as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
b7a902f4 261dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
262
a0d0e21e 263=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
264
265(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
2ba9eb46 266shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 267S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
a0d0e21e 268S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
269
270=item Bad associative array
271
272(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
273
274=item Bad filehandle: %s
275
276(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
277has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
278did it in another package.
279
280=item Bad free() ignored
281
282(S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
33c8a3fe 283malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
284setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
285
286This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
287"hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
288C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
289system malloc().
a0d0e21e 290
291=item Bad name after %s::
292
293(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
294finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
295so
296
297 $var = 'myvar';
298 $sym = mypack::$var;
299
300is not the same as
301
302 $var = 'myvar';
303 $sym = "mypack::$var";
304
305=item Bad symbol for array
306
307(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
308wasn't a symbol table entry.
309
310=item Bad symbol for filehandle
311
312(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
313wasn't a symbol table entry.
314
315=item Bad symbol for hash
316
317(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
318wasn't a symbol table entry.
319
8b1a09fc 320=item Badly placed ()'s
cb1a09d0 321
322(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
8b1a09fc 323of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
cb1a09d0 324into Perl yourself.
325
a0d0e21e 326=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
327
328(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
329Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
330
331=item bind() on closed fd
332
333(W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
334the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
335
4633a7c4 336=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
337
338(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
339
a0d0e21e 340=item Callback called exit
341
342(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
343exited by calling exit.
344
345=item Can't "last" outside a block
346
347(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
348except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
349current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
350"loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get the same
5f05dabc 351effect though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block
a0d0e21e 352that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
353
354=item Can't "next" outside a block
355
356(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
357there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
358count as a "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get
5f05dabc 359the same effect though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block
a0d0e21e 360that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
361
362=item Can't "redo" outside a block
363
364(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
365there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
366count as a "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get
5f05dabc 367the same effect though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block
a0d0e21e 368that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
369
370=item Can't bless non-reference value
371
372(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
373encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
374
375=item Can't break at that line
376
377(S) A warning intended for while running within the debugger, indicating
378the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
379be stopped at.
380
381=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
382
383(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
384functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
385in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
386
387=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
388
389(F) A method call must know what package it's supposed to run in. It
390ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
391you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
392an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
393
394=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
395
396(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
397object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
398neither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)
399Something like this will reproduce the error:
400
401 $BADREF = undef;
402 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
403 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
404
405=item Can't chdir to %s
406
407(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
408that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
409
410=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
411
412(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 413(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e 414say things like:
415
416 *foo += 1;
417
418You CAN say
419
420 $foo = *foo;
421 $foo += 1;
422
423but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
424
425=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
426
427(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 428(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e 429
430=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
431
432(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 433(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e 434
435=item Can't create pipe mailbox
436
748a9306 437(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
438or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 439
440=item Can't declare %s in my
441
5f05dabc 442(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
a0d0e21e 443They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
444
445=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
446
447(S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
448
5f05dabc 449=item Can't do in-place edit without backup
a0d0e21e 450
451(F) You're on a system such as MSDOS that gets confused if you try reading
452from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say B<-i>C<.bak>, or some
453such.
454
8b1a09fc 455=item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
a0d0e21e 456
457(S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
458
459=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
460
461(S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
462/dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
463
464=item Can't do setegid!
465
466(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
467of suidperl.
468
469=item Can't do seteuid!
470
471(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
472
473=item Can't do setuid
474
475(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
476do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
477form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
478under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
479If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
480your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
481
482=item Can't do waitpid with flags
483
484(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
485without flags is emulated.
486
8b1a09fc 487=item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
a0d0e21e 488
489(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
490your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
491
492=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
493
494(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
495For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
496
497=item Can't exec "%s": %s
498
5f05dabc 499(W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
a0d0e21e 500program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
501were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
502executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
503#! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
504similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
505
506=item Can't exec %s
507
508(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
509what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
510mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
511
512=item Can't execute %s
513
514(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
515in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions.
516
517=item Can't find label %s
518
519(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
520for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
521
522=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
523
524(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
5f05dabc 525the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
a0d0e21e 526levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
527
528 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.)
529
530=item Can't fork
531
532(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
533
33c8a3fe 534=item Unsupported function fork
535
536(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
537
538Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
539Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
540the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
541
748a9306 542=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
543
544(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
545access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
546access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
547that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
548assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
549it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
550retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
551but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
5f05dabc 552routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
748a9306 553appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
554returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
555knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
556see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
557code takes stat buffers lightly.)
558
a0d0e21e 559=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
560
748a9306 561(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
562can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e 563
564=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
565
748a9306 566(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
567mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 568
569=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
570
571(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
572call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
5f05dabc 573you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
a0d0e21e 574L<perlfunc/goto>.
575
4633a7c4 576=item Can't localize a reference
577
578(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which is not allowed because
579the compiler can't determine whether $ref will end up pointing to anything
580with a symbol table entry, and a symbol table entry is necessary to
581do a local.
582
748a9306 583=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
584
2ba9eb46 585(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
748a9306 586lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
587localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
588package name.
589
a0d0e21e 590=item Can't locate %s in @INC
591
592(F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
593in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set
594the PERL5LIB environment variable to say where the extra library is,
595or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
596you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
597
598=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
599
600(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
601functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 602method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e 603
604=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
605
606(W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
607to exist.
608
609=item Can't mktemp()
610
611(F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while trying to process
612a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
613
614=item Can't modify %s in %s
615
616(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
5f05dabc 617change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 618
619=item Can't modify non-existent substring
620
621(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
622a NULL.
623
5f05dabc 624=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 625
5f05dabc 626(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e 627buffer.
628
629=item Can't open %s: %s
630
631(S) An inplace edit couldn't open the original file for the indicated reason.
632Usually this is because you don't have read permission for the file.
633
634=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
635
636(W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
637try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
7e1af8bc 638IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
a0d0e21e 639and then read it in under a different file handle.
640
748a9306 641=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
642
643(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
8b1a09fc 644couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
645command line for writing.
748a9306 646
647=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
648
649(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
8b1a09fc 650couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
748a9306 651
652=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
653
654(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
8b1a09fc 655couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
656line for writing.
748a9306 657
658=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
659
660(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
661couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
662
a0d0e21e 663=item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
664
665(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
666
667=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
668
669(S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
670you don't have write permission to the directory.
671
748a9306 672=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
673
674(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
675reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
676
a0d0e21e 677=item Can't reswap uid and euid
678
679(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
680of suidperl.
681
682=item Can't return outside a subroutine
683
684(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
685there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
686
687=item Can't stat script "%s"
688
689(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
690it open already. Bizarre.
691
692=item Can't swap uid and euid
693
694(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
695of suidperl.
696
697=item Can't take log of %g
698
5f05dabc 699(F) Logarithms are defined on only positive real numbers.
a0d0e21e 700
701=item Can't take sqrt of %g
702
703(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
704negative number. There's a Complex package available for Perl, though,
705if you really want to do that.
706
707=item Can't undef active subroutine
708
709(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
710however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
711redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
712
713=item Can't unshift
714
715(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
716as the main Perl stack.
717
718=item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
719
720(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
721it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
722so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
723message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
724
725=item Can't upgrade to undef
726
727(P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
728of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
729code calling sv_upgrade.
730
c07a80fd 731=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
732
733(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
8b1a09fc 734You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 735and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
736Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
737lexical variable.
738
a0d0e21e 739=item Can't use %s for loop variable
740
741(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
742
743=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
744
745(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
746reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
747test the type of the reference, if need be.
748
748a9306 749=item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
750
751(W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
752a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
5f05dabc 753to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
748a9306 754Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
755out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
756
44a8e56a 757=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
758
759(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
760are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
761
748a9306 762=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 763
764(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
765are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
766
767=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
768
769(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
770be a defined value. This helps to de-lurk some insidious errors.
771
a0d0e21e 772=item Can't use global %s in "my"
773
774(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
5f05dabc 775not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
a0d0e21e 776the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
777variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
778weren't.
779
748a9306 780=item Can't use subscript on %s
781
782(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
783subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
784didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
785
a0d0e21e 786=item Can't write to temp file for B<-e>: %s
787
788(F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
789a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
790
5f05dabc 791=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 792
793(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
794an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
795Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
796
797=item Cannot open temporary file
798
8b1a09fc 799(F) The create routine failed for some reason while trying to process
a0d0e21e 800a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
801
e7ea3e70 802=item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
803
804(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
805opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
806package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
807
a0d0e21e 808=item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
809
810(W) A novice will sometimes say
811
812 chmod 777, $filename
813
814not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
815to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
816
8b1a09fc 817=item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
a0d0e21e 818
819(W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
820
821=item connect() on closed fd
822
823(W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
824the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
825
4cee8e80 826=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
827
828(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
829inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
830workarounds.
831
e7ea3e70 832=item Copy method did not return a reference
833
834(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
835
a0d0e21e 836=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
837
838(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
839
840=item corrupted regexp pointers
841
842(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
843expression compiler gave it.
844
845=item corrupted regexp program
846
847(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
848a valid magic number.
849
850=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
851
852(W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
853times than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
854recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
855case it indicates something else.
856
4633a7c4 857=item Did you mean &%s instead?
858
859(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
860
748a9306 861=item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
a0d0e21e 862
748a9306 863(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
864On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
865
7e1af8bc 866=item Died
5f05dabc 867
868(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
869you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
870
871=item Do you need to pre-declare %s?
748a9306 872
873(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
874found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
875name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
876because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
877"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
878referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
879to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
880can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
881declaration.
a0d0e21e 882
883=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
884
885(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
886
887=item do_study: out of memory
888
889(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
890
891=item Duplicate free() ignored
892
893(S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
894been freed.
895
4633a7c4 896=item elseif should be elsif
897
898(S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
899ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
900named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
901unlikely to be what you want.
902
a0d0e21e 903=item END failed--cleanup aborted
904
905(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
906The interpreter is immediately exited.
907
748a9306 908=item Error converting file specification %s
909
5f05dabc 910(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 911specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
912single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
913passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
914case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
915
a0d0e21e 916=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
917
918(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
919
920=item Exiting eval via %s
921
8b1a09fc 922(W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
a0d0e21e 923a goto, or a loop control statement.
924
925=item Exiting subroutine via %s
926
8b1a09fc 927(W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
a0d0e21e 928a goto, or a loop control statement.
929
930=item Exiting substitution via %s
931
8b1a09fc 932(W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
a0d0e21e 933a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
934
748a9306 935=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 936
748a9306 937(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
938service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
939filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
940the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e 941
942=item fcntl is not implemented
943
944(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
945PDP-11 or something?
946
947=item Filehandle %s never opened
948
949(W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
950You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
951the FileHandle package.
952
5f05dabc 953=item Filehandle %s opened for only input
a0d0e21e 954
955(W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
956intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
8b1a09fc 957"+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
5f05dabc 958you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
8b1a09fc 959L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 960
5f05dabc 961=item Filehandle opened for only input
a0d0e21e 962
963(W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
964intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
8b1a09fc 965"+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
5f05dabc 966you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
8b1a09fc 967L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 968
969=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
970
971(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
972a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
973that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
974the name.
975
976=item Final @ should be \@ or @name
977
978(F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
979a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
980that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
981the name.
982
983=item Format %s redefined
984
985(W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
986
987 {
988 local $^W = 0;
989 eval "format NAME =...";
990 }
991
992=item Format not terminated
993
994(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
995to the end of your file without finding such a line.
996
997=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
998
999(W) You said
1000
1001 if ($foo = 123)
1002
1003when you meant
1004
1005 if ($foo == 123)
1006
1007(or something like that).
1008
1009=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1010
1011(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1012
1013=item gethostent not implemented
1014
1015(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1016because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1017on the Internet.
1018
1019=item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1020
1021(W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1022Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1023
748a9306 1024=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1025
1026(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1027C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1028
1029
a0d0e21e 1030=item Glob not terminated
1031
1032(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1033a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1034finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1035the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1036
1037=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1038
1039(F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables must
1040either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1041say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1042
1043=item goto must have label
1044
1045(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1046unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1047
1048=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1049
1050(S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1051existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1052an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1053
1054=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1055
1056(D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1057is now heavily deprecated.
1058
8b1a09fc 1059=item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
a0d0e21e 1060
8b1a09fc 1061(W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
1062to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
5f05dabc 1063names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
1064appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
8b1a09fc 1065might directly modify logical name tables and introduce non-standard names,
1066or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
a0d0e21e 1067
1068=item Illegal division by zero
1069
1070(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1071logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1072
1073=item Illegal modulus zero
1074
1075(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1076don't take to this kindly.
1077
1078=item Illegal octal digit
1079
1080(F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1081
748a9306 1082=item Illegal octal digit ignored
1083
1084(W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1085of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1086
a0d0e21e 1087=item Insecure dependency in %s
1088
8b1a09fc 1089(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
a0d0e21e 1090The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1091or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1092labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1093who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1094used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1095for more information.
1096
1097=item Insecure directory in %s
1098
1099(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
8b1a09fc 1100script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
a0d0e21e 1101See L<perlsec>.
1102
1103=item Insecure PATH
1104
1105(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
8b1a09fc 1106setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> is derived from data supplied (or
a0d0e21e 1107potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1108known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1109
bbce6d69 1110=item Integer overflow in hex number
1111
1112(S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
1113architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
11140xFFFFFFFF.
1115
1116=item Integer overflow in octal number
1117
1118(S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
1119architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
1120037777777777.
1121
748a9306 1122=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1123
1124(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
5f05dabc 1125of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
2ba9eb46 1126whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
748a9306 1127script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
1128has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1129this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1130and execute the specified command.
1131
a0d0e21e 1132=item internal disaster in regexp
1133
1134(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1135
1136=item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1137
1138(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1139
1140=item invalid [] range in regexp
1141
1142(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1143greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1144
1145=item ioctl is not implemented
1146
1147(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1148strange for a machine that supports C.
1149
1150=item junk on end of regexp
1151
1152(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1153
1154=item Label not found for "last %s"
1155
1156(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1157loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1158See L<perlfunc/last>.
1159
1160=item Label not found for "next %s"
1161
1162(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1163that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1164L<perlfunc/last>.
1165
1166=item Label not found for "redo %s"
1167
1168(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1169that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1170L<perlfunc/last>.
1171
1172=item listen() on closed fd
1173
1174(W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1175the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1176
1177=item Literal @%s now requires backslash
1178
1179(F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1180array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was
1181first used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and
1182ambiguous instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by putting a
1183backslash to indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array
1184within the program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply
1185assume that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1186
1187=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1188
1189(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 1190doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 1191
1192=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1193
1194(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1195by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1196ended earlier on the current line.
1197
1198=item Misplaced _ in number
1199
1200(W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1201
1202=item Missing $ on loop variable
1203
8b1a09fc 1204(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1205mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
a0d0e21e 1206one line to the next.
1207
1208=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1209
1210(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1211"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1212
748a9306 1213=item Missing operator before %s?
1214
1215(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1216found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1217
a0d0e21e 1218=item Missing right bracket
1219
1220(F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1221As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1222editing.
1223
1224=item Missing semicolon on previous line?
1225
1226(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1227found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1228the previous line just because you saw this message.
1229
1230=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1231
1232(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 1233constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e 1234catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1235
1236 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1237 mod(2);
1238
1239Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1240
1241=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1242
1243(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1244subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1245backwards.
1246
1247=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1248
1249(F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1250be created for some peculiar reason.
1251
1252=item Module name must be constant
1253
1254(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1255
1256=item msg%s not implemented
1257
1258(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1259
1260=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1261
8b1a09fc 1262(W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1263like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1264
1265=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1266
1267(W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names. If you
1268had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1269again somehow to suppress the message (the C<use vars> pragma is
1270provided for just this purpose).
a0d0e21e 1271
1272=item Negative length
1273
1274(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1275that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1276
1277=item nested *?+ in regexp
1278
5f05dabc 1279(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
a0d0e21e 1280things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1281
5f05dabc 1282Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
a0d0e21e 1283to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1284
1285=item No #! line
1286
1287(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1288even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1289
1290=item No %s allowed while running setuid
1291
1292(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1293script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1294another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1295See L<perlsec>.
1296
1297=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1298
1299(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1300
1301=item No comma allowed after %s
1302
1303(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1304allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1305Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1306
748a9306 1307=item No command into which to pipe on command line
1308
1309(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1310and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither you
1311want to pipe the output from this command.
1312
a0d0e21e 1313=item No DB::DB routine defined
1314
1315(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1316but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1317didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1318statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1319automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1320right.
1321
1322=item No dbm on this machine
1323
1324(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 1325supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 1326
1327=item No DBsub routine
1328
1329(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1330but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1331didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1332ordinary subroutine call.
1333
8b1a09fc 1334=item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
748a9306 1335
1336(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
8b1a09fc 1337and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1338the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 1339
8b1a09fc 1340=item No input file after E<lt> on command line
748a9306 1341
1342(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
8b1a09fc 1343and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1344from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 1345
8b1a09fc 1346=item No output file after E<gt> on command line
748a9306 1347
1348(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
8b1a09fc 1349and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1350whither you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 1351
8b1a09fc 1352=item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
748a9306 1353
1354(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
8b1a09fc 1355and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1356name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 1357
a0d0e21e 1358=item No Perl script found in input
1359
1360(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1361with #! and containing the word "perl".
1362
1363=item No setregid available
1364
1365(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1366your system.
1367
1368=item No setreuid available
1369
1370(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1371your system.
1372
1373=item No space allowed after B<-I>
1374
1375(F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1376intervening space.
1377
748a9306 1378=item No such pipe open
1379
1380(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1381close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1382an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1383
a0d0e21e 1384=item No such signal: SIG%s
1385
1386(W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1387Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1388
1389=item Not a CODE reference
1390
1391(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1392subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1393use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1394See also L<perlref>.
1395
1396=item Not a format reference
1397
1398(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1399format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1400
1401=item Not a GLOB reference
1402
55497cff 1403(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
a0d0e21e 1404a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1405something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1406what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1407
1408=item Not a HASH reference
1409
1410(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1411found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1412function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1413
1414=item Not a perl script
1415
1416(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1417even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1418mention perl.
1419
1420=item Not a SCALAR reference
1421
1422(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1423found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1424function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1425
1426=item Not a subroutine reference
1427
1428(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1429subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1430use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1431See also L<perlref>.
1432
e7ea3e70 1433=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e 1434
1435(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 1436doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 1437
1438=item Not an ARRAY reference
1439
1440(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1441found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1442function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1443
1444=item Not enough arguments for %s
1445
1446(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1447
1448=item Not enough format arguments
1449
1450(W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1451See L<perlform>.
1452
1453=item Null filename used
1454
5f05dabc 1455(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
a0d0e21e 1456that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1457
55497cff 1458=item Null picture in formline
1459
1460(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1461specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1462supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1463
a0d0e21e 1464=item NULL OP IN RUN
1465
1466(P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1467
1468=item Null realloc
1469
1470(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1471
1472=item NULL regexp argument
1473
5f05dabc 1474(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e 1475
1476=item NULL regexp parameter
1477
1478(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1479
1480=item Odd number of elements in hash list
1481
1482(S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash list, which is odd,
5f05dabc 1483because hash lists come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 1484
bbce6d69 1485=item Offset outside string
1486
1487(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1488pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1489The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1490will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1491
a0d0e21e 1492=item oops: oopsAV
1493
1494(S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1495
1496=item oops: oopsHV
1497
1498(S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1499
e7ea3e70 1500=item Operation `%s': no method found,%s
44a8e56a 1501
e7ea3e70 1502(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1503no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1504terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1505operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1506true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 1507
748a9306 1508=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1509
1510(S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1511expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1512to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1513For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1514if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1515
a0d0e21e 1516=item Out of memory for yacc stack
1517
1518(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1519but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1520
1521=item Out of memory!
1522
55497cff 1523(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
eff9c6e2 1524remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1525
1526The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1527depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1528However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1529an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
55497cff 1530error is trappable I<once>.
1531
1532=item Out of memory during request for %s
1533
1534(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1535remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1536the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1537a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1538
a0d0e21e 1539=item page overflow
1540
1541(W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1542See L<perlform>.
1543
1544=item panic: ck_grep
1545
1546(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1547
1548=item panic: ck_split
1549
1550(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1551
1552=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1553
1554(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1555are in the savestack.
1556
1557=item panic: die %s
1558
1559(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1560it wasn't an eval context.
1561
1562=item panic: do_match
1563
1564(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1565
1566=item panic: do_split
1567
1568(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1569
1570=item panic: do_subst
1571
1572(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1573
1574=item panic: do_trans
1575
1576(P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1577
1578=item panic: goto
1579
1580(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1581and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1582
1583=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1584
1585(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1586
1587=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1588
1589(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1590
1591=item panic: last
1592
1593(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1594it wasn't a block context.
1595
1596=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1597
5f05dabc 1598(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
a0d0e21e 1599
1600=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1601
1602(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1603invalid enum on the top of it.
1604
1605=item panic: malloc
1606
1607(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1608
1609=item panic: mapstart
1610
1611(P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1612
1613=item panic: null array
1614
1615(P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1616
1617=item panic: pad_alloc
1618
1619(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1620and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1621
1622=item panic: pad_free curpad
1623
1624(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1625and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1626
1627=item panic: pad_free po
1628
1629(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1630
1631=item panic: pad_reset curpad
1632
1633(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1634and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1635
1636=item panic: pad_sv po
1637
1638(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1639
1640=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1641
1642(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1643and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1644
1645=item panic: pad_swipe po
1646
1647(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1648
1649=item panic: pp_iter
1650
1651(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1652
1653=item panic: realloc
1654
1655(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1656
1657=item panic: restartop
1658
1659(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1660didn't supply the destination.
1661
1662=item panic: return
1663
1664(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1665then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
1666
1667=item panic: scan_num
1668
1669(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
1670
1671=item panic: sv_insert
1672
1673(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
1674was string.
1675
1676=item panic: top_env
1677
1678(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
1679
1680=item panic: yylex
1681
1682(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
1683
5f05dabc 1684=item Pareneses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 1685
1686(W) You said something like
1687
1688 my $foo, $bar = @_;
1689
1690when you meant
1691
1692 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
1693
1694Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
1695
1696=item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
1697
1698(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
1699than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
1700anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
1701
1702=item Permission denied
1703
1704(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
1705
748a9306 1706=item pid %d not a child
1707
1708(W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
1709isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
1710perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
1711
a0d0e21e 1712=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
1713
1714(F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
1715the BSD version, which takes a pid.
1716
bbce6d69 1717=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
1718
774d564b 1719(W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
1720strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
1721as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
1722exclamation marks parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1723used.)
bbce6d69 1724
774d564b 1725You probably wrote something like this:
1726
1727 @list = qw(
1728 a # a comment
bbce6d69 1729 b # another comment
774d564b 1730 );
bbce6d69 1731
1732when you should have written this:
1733
774d564b 1734 @list = qw(
1735 a
bbce6d69 1736 b
774d564b 1737 );
1738
1739If you really want comments, build your list the
1740old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
1741
1742 @list = (
1743 'a', # a comment
1744 'b', # another comment
1745 );
bbce6d69 1746
1747=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
1748
774d564b 1749(W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
1750aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
1751delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1752used.)
bbce6d69 1753
774d564b 1754You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 1755
774d564b 1756 qw! a, b, c !;
1757
1758which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
1759commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 1760
774d564b 1761 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 1762
a0d0e21e 1763=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
1764
1765(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
1766Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
1767end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
1768Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
1769
1770=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
1771
1772(S) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 1773
a0d0e21e 1774 open FOO || die;
1775
1776is now misinterpreted as
1777
1778 open(FOO || die);
1779
1780because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
1781list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
5f05dabc 1782parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead of "||".
a0d0e21e 1783
1784=item print on closed filehandle %s
1785
1786(W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
1787Check your logic flow.
1788
1789=item printf on closed filehandle %s
1790
1791(W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1792Check your logic flow.
1793
1794=item Probable precedence problem on %s
1795
1796(W) The compiler found a bare word where it expected a conditional,
1797which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
1798last argument of the previous construct, for example:
1799
1800 open FOO || die;
1801
4633a7c4 1802=item Prototype mismatch: (%s) vs (%s)
1803
5f05dabc 1804(S) The subroutine being defined had a pre-declared (forward) declaration
4633a7c4 1805with a different function prototype.
1806
8b1a09fc 1807=item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
a0d0e21e 1808
1809(W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
1810Check your logic flow.
1811
1812=item Reallocation too large: %lx
1813
1814(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
1815
1816=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
1817
1818(F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
1819desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
1820which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
1821
1822=item Recursive inheritance detected
1823
1824(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
1825an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
1826
1827=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
1828
1829(W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
1830reference count of other than 1.
1831
1832=item regexp memory corruption
1833
1834(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1835expression compiler gave it.
1836
1837=item regexp out of space
1838
1839(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
1840
1841=item regexp too big
1842
2ba9eb46 1843(F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
a0d0e21e 1844address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
1845the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
1846Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
1847way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
1848
1849=item Reversed %s= operator
1850
1851(W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
1852comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
1853
1854=item Runaway format
1855
1856(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
1857produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
1858199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
1859themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
1860shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
1861
1862=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
1863
a6006777 1864(W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
a0d0e21e 1865an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
8b1a09fc 1866The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
1867assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
a0d0e21e 1868like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
5f05dabc 1869subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 1870
748a9306 1871On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 1872element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306 1873Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1874L<perlref>.
1875
a6006777 1876=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
1877
1878(W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
1879a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1880The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
1881assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
1882like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1883subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
1884
1885On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
1886element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
1887Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1888L<perlref>.
1889
a0d0e21e 1890=item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
1891
1892(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script with its setuid
8b1a09fc 1893or setgid bit not set. This doesn't make much sense.
a0d0e21e 1894
1895=item Search pattern not terminated
1896
1897(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
1898construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1899
1900=item seek() on unopened file
1901
1902(W) You tried to use the seek() function on a filehandle that was either
1903never opened or has been closed since.
1904
1905=item select not implemented
1906
1907(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
1908
1909=item sem%s not implemented
1910
1911(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
1912
1913=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
1914
1915(S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
1916that had previously been marked as free.
1917
1918=item Semicolon seems to be missing
1919
1920(W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
1921or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
1922
1923=item Send on closed socket
1924
1925(W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
1926Check your logic flow.
1927
1928=item Sequence (?#... not terminated
1929
1930(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
5f05dabc 1931parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 1932
1933=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
1934
1935(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
1936but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
1937
1938=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
1939
1940(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
1941See L<perlre>.
1942
a5f75d66 1943=item Server error
1944
1945Also known as "500 Server error". This is a CGI error, not a Perl
1946error. You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible
1947by the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not
1948the user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
1949variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
1950in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
1951
a0d0e21e 1952=item setegid() not implemented
1953
8b1a09fc 1954(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
a0d0e21e 1955the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1956think so.
1957
1958=item seteuid() not implemented
1959
8b1a09fc 1960(F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
a0d0e21e 1961the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1962think so.
1963
1964=item setrgid() not implemented
1965
8b1a09fc 1966(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
a0d0e21e 1967the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1968think so.
1969
1970=item setruid() not implemented
1971
8b1a09fc 1972(F) You tried to assign to C<$<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
a0d0e21e 1973the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1974think so.
1975
1976=item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
1977
1978(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
1979because the world might have written on it already.
1980
1981=item shm%s not implemented
1982
1983(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
1984
1985=item shutdown() on closed fd
1986
1987(W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
1988
1989=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined.
1990
1991(W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
1992put it into the wrong package?
1993
1994=item sort is now a reserved word
1995
1996(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
1997But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
1998
1999=item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2000
2001(F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
4633a7c4 2002it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
a0d0e21e 2003See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2004
2005=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2006
2007(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2008or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2009
2010=item Split loop
2011
2012(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2013more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2014See L<perlfunc/split>.
2015
8b1a09fc 2016=item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
a0d0e21e 2017
2018(W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2019on a filehandle that was either never opened or has been closed since.
2020
2021=item Statement unlikely to be reached
2022
2023(W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2024This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2025there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2026which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2027by itself.
2028
e7ea3e70 2029=item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2030
2031(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2032Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2033may break this.
2034
a0d0e21e 2035=item Subroutine %s redefined
2036
2037(W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2038
2039 {
2040 local $^W = 0;
2041 eval "sub name { ... }";
2042 }
2043
2044=item Substitution loop
2045
2046(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2047substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2048input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5f05dabc 2049L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
a0d0e21e 2050
2051=item Substitution pattern not terminated
2052
2053(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2054construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2055
2056=item Substitution replacement not terminated
2057
2058(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2059construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2060
2061=item substr outside of string
2062
2063(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a string.
2064That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the length of
2065the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
2066
2067=item suidperl is no longer needed since...
2068
2069(F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2070version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2071
2072=item syntax error
2073
2074(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2075
2076 A keyword is misspelled.
2077 A semicolon is missing.
2078 A comma is missing.
2079 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2080 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2081 A closing quote is missing.
2082
2083Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2084error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2085The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2086it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 2087before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e 2088Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2089the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2090C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2091if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2092
cb1a09d0 2093=item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2094
8b1a09fc 2095(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2096instead of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
cb1a09d0 2097into Perl yourself.
2098
a0d0e21e 2099=item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
2100
5f05dabc 2101(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm",
a0d0e21e 2102or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
2103
2104=item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2105
2106(W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2107Check your logic flow.
2108
2109=item tell() on unopened file
2110
2111(W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2112never opened or has been closed since.
2113
8b1a09fc 2114=item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
a0d0e21e 2115
2116(W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2117open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2118
2119=item That use of $[ is unsupported
2120
8b1a09fc 2121(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
5f05dabc 2122a compiler directive. You may say only one of
a0d0e21e 2123
2124 $[ = 0;
2125 $[ = 1;
2126 ...
2127 local $[ = 0;
2128 local $[ = 1;
2129 ...
2130
2131This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2132out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2133
2134=item The %s function is unimplemented
2135
2136The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2137to the probings of Configure.
2138
2139=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
2140
2141(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2142probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 2143think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e 2144will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2145will deny it.
2146
2147=item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2148
2149(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2150if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2151the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2152
2153=item times not implemented
2154
2155(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2156you're not running on Unix.
2157
2158=item Too few args to syscall
2159
2160(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2161system call to call, silly dilly.
2162
cb1a09d0 2163=item Too many ('s
2164
2165=item Too many )'s
2166
2167(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
8b1a09fc 2168of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
cb1a09d0 2169into Perl yourself.
2170
a0d0e21e 2171=item Too many args to syscall
2172
5f05dabc 2173(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e 2174
2175=item Too many arguments for %s
2176
2177(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2178
2179=item trailing \ in regexp
2180
2181(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2182it. See L<perlre>.
2183
2184=item Translation pattern not terminated
2185
2186(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2187construct.
2188
2189=item Translation replacement not terminated
2190
2191(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2192construct.
2193
2194=item truncate not implemented
2195
2196(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2197Configure knows about.
2198
2199=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2200
2201(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 2202certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2203%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e 2204{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2205
2206=item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2207
5f05dabc 2208(W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal literals
a0d0e21e 2209always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2210
4633a7c4 2211=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2212
2213(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2214
a0d0e21e 2215=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2216
2217(W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2218contexts were entered and left.
2219
2220=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2221
2222(W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2223values were temporarily localized.
2224
2225=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2226
2227(W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2228were entered and left.
2229
2230=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2231
2232(W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2233scalars were allocated and freed.
2234
2235=item Undefined format "%s" called
2236
2237(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2238another package? See L<perlform>.
2239
2240=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2241
2242(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2243it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2244
2245=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2246
2247(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2248has since been undefined.
2249
2250=item Undefined subroutine called
2251
2252(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2253or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2254
2255=item Undefined subroutine in sort
2256
2257(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2258have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2259
4633a7c4 2260=item Undefined top format "%s" called
2261
2262(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2263another package? See L<perlform>.
2264
a0d0e21e 2265=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2266
2267(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2268representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2269
2270=item Unknown BYTEORDER
2271
5f05dabc 2272(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
a0d0e21e 2273
2274=item unmatched () in regexp
2275
2276(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2277expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
5f05dabc 2278the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2279
2280=item Unmatched right bracket
2281
2282(F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2283ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2284rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2285last editing.
2286
2287=item unmatched [] in regexp
2288
2289(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2290include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2291See L<perlre>.
2292
2293=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2294
2295(W) You used a bare word that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2296It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2297an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2298
2299=item Unrecognized character \%03o ignored
2300
2301(S) A garbage character was found in the input, and ignored, in case it's
2302a weird control character on an EBCDIC machine, or some such.
2303
2304=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2305
2306(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2307Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2308
2309=item Unrecognized switch: -%s
2310
2311(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2312(If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2313supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2314
2315=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2316
2317(W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2318failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2319because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chop>.
2320
2321=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2322
2323(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2324
2325=item Unsupported function %s
2326
2327(F) This machines doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2328At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2329
2330=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2331
2332(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2333least that's what Configure thought.
2334
8b1a09fc 2335=item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
a0d0e21e 2336
2337(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2338a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2339finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2340the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2341
2342=item Use of $# is deprecated
2343
8b1a09fc 2344(D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
a0d0e21e 2345Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2346
2347=item Use of $* is deprecated
2348
5f05dabc 2349(D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
a0d0e21e 2350you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2351use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2352action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2353
748a9306 2354=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2355
5f05dabc 2356(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2357only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
748a9306 2358
a0d0e21e 2359=item Use of %s is deprecated
2360
2361(D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2362because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2363bad side effects.
2364
8b1a09fc 2365=item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
4633a7c4 2366
2367(D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2368wish to use a blank line as the terminator of the here-document.
2369
a0d0e21e 2370=item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2371
2372(D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2373subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2374a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2375
2376=item Use of uninitialized value
2377
2378(W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2379interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2380warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2381
2382=item Useless use of %s in void context
2383
2384(W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2385with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2386from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2387this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2388your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2389if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2390
2391 $one, $two = 1, 2;
2392
2393when you meant to say
2394
2395 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2396
748a9306 2397Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2398reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2399example, if you say
2400
2401 $array = (1,2);
2402
2403when you should have said
2404
2405 $array = [1,2];
2406
2407The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2408while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2409a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2410throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2411L<perlref> for more on this.
2412
55497cff 2413=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
2414
2415(W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
2416valid when C<untie> was called.
2417
8ebc5c01 2418=item Value of %s construct can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 2419
2420(W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), or
8ebc5c01 2421C<readdir> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
a6006777 2422value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which
8ebc5c01 2423is probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in
a6006777 2424conditional expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
2425
4633a7c4 2426=item Variable "%s" is not exported
2427
2428(F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2429that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2430something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2431by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2432on the front of your variable.
2433
44a8e56a 2434=item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
2435
2436(W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
2437subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
2438(innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
2439the outermost subroutine. For example:
2440
2441 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
2442
2443If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
2444indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
2445as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
2446referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
2447the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
2448*first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
2449you want.
2450
2451In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
2452subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
2453support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
2454subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
2455
2456=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
2457
2458(W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
2459variable defined in an outer subroutine.
2460
2461When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
2462the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
2463*first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
2464call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
2465subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
2466other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
2467
2468Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
2469lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
2470will I<never> share the given variable.
2471
2472This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
2473anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
2474reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
2475they are automatically re-bound to the current values of such
2476variables.
2477
cb1a09d0 2478=item Variable syntax.
2479
2480(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
8b1a09fc 2481of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
cb1a09d0 2482into Perl yourself.
2483
7e1af8bc 2484=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 2485
2486(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
2487you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
2488
a0d0e21e 2489=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly.
2490
8b1a09fc 2491(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
5f05dabc 2492close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
a0d0e21e 2493
5f05dabc 2494=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 2495
2496(S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2497binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2498unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2499has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2500
2501 rand + 5;
2502
2503you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
2504
2505 rand() + 5;
2506
2507but in actual fact, you got
2508
2509 rand(+5);
2510
5f05dabc 2511So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 2512
2513=item Write on closed filehandle
2514
2515(W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2516Check your logic flow.
2517
2518=item X outside of string
2519
2520(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
2521the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2522
2523=item x outside of string
2524
2525(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
2526the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2527
2528=item Xsub "%s" called in sort
2529
2530(F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2531
2532=item Xsub called in sort
2533
2534(F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2535
2536=item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
2537
2538(F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
2539already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
2540Use a filename instead.
2541
2542=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
2543
5f05dabc 2544(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 2545sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
2546about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
2547the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
2548
2549=item You need to quote "%s"
2550
2551(W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
2552already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
2553will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
2554probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
2555
2556=item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
2557
2558(W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
2559Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2560See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2561
2562=item \1 better written as $1
2563
2564(W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
5f05dabc 2565of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
a0d0e21e 2566substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
2567because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
2568if there are more than 9 backreferences.
2569
8b1a09fc 2570=item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
748a9306 2571
2572(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2573found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
8b1a09fc 2574'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
748a9306 2575
8b1a09fc 2576=item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
748a9306 2577
2578(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2579thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
2580command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
2581from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
2582streams, such as
2583
2584 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
2585 while (<STDIN>) {
2586 print;
2587 print OUT;
2588 }
2589 close OUT;
2590
774d564b 2591=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
33c8a3fe 2592
774d564b 2593(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2594version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
33c8a3fe 2595
2596=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2597
2598(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2599
2600 prefix1;prefix2
2601
2602or
2603
2604 prefix1 prefix2
2605
2606with non-empty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2607a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may appear
2608if components are not found, or are too long. See L<perlos2/"PERLLIB_PREFIX">.
2609
2610=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2611
2612(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2613C<sh>-shell in. See L<perlos2/"PERL_SH_DIR">.
2614
2615=item Process terminated by SIG%s
2616
2617(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2618applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2619port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2620L<perlipc/"Signals">. See L<perlos2/"Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT">.
2621
a0d0e21e 2622=back
2623