fix bug in display of watched expressions
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / pod / perldiag.pod
CommitLineData
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).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
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
68dc0745 19be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
748a9306 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!
702d120d 26The symbols C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
a0d0e21e 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
fb73857a 38(W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectively
2ba9eb46 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
f86702cc 99=item %s had compilation errors
a0d0e21e 100
101(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
102
f86702cc 103=item %s has too many errors
a0d0e21e 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
f86702cc 122=item %s: Command not found
cb1a09d0 123
124(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3a52c276 125of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
126Perl yourself.
cb1a09d0 127
f86702cc 128=item %s: Expression syntax
cb1a09d0 129
130(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3a52c276 131of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
132Perl yourself.
cb1a09d0 133
f86702cc 134=item %s: Undefined variable
cb1a09d0 135
136(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3a52c276 137of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
138Perl yourself.
cb1a09d0 139
140=item %s: not found
141
8b1a09fc 142(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
3a52c276 143instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
cb1a09d0 144into Perl yourself.
145
702d120d 146=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
147
148(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
149found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
150the previous line just because you saw this message.
151
a0d0e21e 152=item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
153
154(F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
155which provides a race condition that breaks security.
156
157=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
158
159(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
160know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
161
08e9d68e 162=item C<-p> destination: %s
163
164(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
165command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
166redirected it with select().)
167
a5f75d66 168=item 500 Server error
169
170See Server error.
171
a0d0e21e 172=item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
173
174(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
175if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
176
177=item @ outside of string
178
2ba9eb46 179(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
a0d0e21e 180the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
181
182=item accept() on closed fd
183
184(W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
185the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
186
187=item Allocation too large: %lx
188
54310121 189(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
55497cff 190
2ae324a7 191=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
192
2c268ad5 193(W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
2ae324a7 194operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
195or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
196length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
197that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
198L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
199
a0d0e21e 200=item Arg too short for msgsnd
201
202(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
203
748a9306 204=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
205
206(W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
207you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
5f05dabc 208a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
748a9306 209
5315574d 210=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
211
212(W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
213and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
214other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
215not imported.
216
217To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
218before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
219Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
220imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
221
222To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
223on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
224to be an object method (see L<attrs>).
225
a0d0e21e 226=item Args must match #! line
227
228(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
3a52c276 229with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
230impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
231for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
a0d0e21e 232
f86702cc 233=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 234
235(W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
236expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
237will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
238
239=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
240
241(D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
242is now heavily deprecated.
243
244=item assertion botched: %s
245
246(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
247
248=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
249
250(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
251
252=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
253
254(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
255must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
256know which context to supply to the right side.
257
258=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
259
260(P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
261be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
262of those arenas.
263
54310121 264=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
bbce6d69 265
266(P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
267optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
268indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
269that can no longer be found in the table.
270
a0d0e21e 271=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
272
273(W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
274routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
275the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
276routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
277it.
278
279=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
280
281(P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
282
283=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
284
285(W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
286would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
287and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
288could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
289SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
290when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
291
84902520 292=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
293
294(W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
295function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
296means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
297invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
298literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
299avoid this warning.
300
b7a902f4 301=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
302
303(W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
8b1a09fc 304as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
b7a902f4 305dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
306
a0d0e21e 307=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
308
309(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
2ba9eb46 310shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 311S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
a0d0e21e 312S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
313
a0d0e21e 314=item Bad filehandle: %s
315
316(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
317has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
318did it in another package.
319
320=item Bad free() ignored
321
322(S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
33c8a3fe 323malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
324setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
325
326This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
327"hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
328C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
329system malloc().
a0d0e21e 330
aa689395 331=item Bad hash
332
333(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
334
f1192cee 335=item Bad index while coercing array into hash
336
6f54a448 337(F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
338pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
339See L<perlref>.
57079c46 340
a0d0e21e 341=item Bad name after %s::
342
343(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
344finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
345so
346
347 $var = 'myvar';
348 $sym = mypack::$var;
349
350is not the same as
351
352 $var = 'myvar';
353 $sym = "mypack::$var";
354
355=item Bad symbol for array
356
357(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
358wasn't a symbol table entry.
359
360=item Bad symbol for filehandle
361
362(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
363wasn't a symbol table entry.
364
365=item Bad symbol for hash
366
367(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
368wasn't a symbol table entry.
369
8b1a09fc 370=item Badly placed ()'s
cb1a09d0 371
372(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3a52c276 373of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
374Perl yourself.
cb1a09d0 375
3fe9a6f1 376=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
377
378(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
379subroutine identifier, in curly braces or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
54310121 380Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
3fe9a6f1 381
c3e0f903 382=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
383
384(W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
385the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
386Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
387
a0d0e21e 388=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
389
390(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
391Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
392
68dc0745 393=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
394
395(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
396implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
397already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
398could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
399likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
400
a0d0e21e 401=item bind() on closed fd
402
403(W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
404the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
405
4633a7c4 406=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
407
408(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
409
a0d0e21e 410=item Callback called exit
411
412(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
413exited by calling exit.
414
0a753a76 415=item Can't "goto" outside a block
416
417(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
418like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
419occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
420is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
421
84902520 422=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
423
424(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
425foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
426
a0d0e21e 427=item Can't "last" outside a block
428
429(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
430except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
431current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
0a753a76 432"loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
433the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
434will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e 435
436=item Can't "next" outside a block
437
438(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
439there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
0a753a76 440count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
441usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
54310121 442curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
a0d0e21e 443
444=item Can't "redo" outside a block
445
446(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
447there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
0a753a76 448count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
449usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
54310121 450curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
a0d0e21e 451
452=item Can't bless non-reference value
453
454(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
455encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
456
457=item Can't break at that line
458
54310121 459(S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
a0d0e21e 460the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
461be stopped at.
462
463=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
464
465(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
466functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
467in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
468
469=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
470
54310121 471(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
a0d0e21e 472ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
473you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
474an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
475
476=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
477
478(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
479object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
72b5445b 480a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
481Something like this will reproduce the error:
482
483 $BADREF = 42;
484 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
485 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
486
487=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
488
489(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
490object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
a0d0e21e 491Something like this will reproduce the error:
492
493 $BADREF = undef;
494 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
495 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
496
497=item Can't chdir to %s
498
499(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
500that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
501
502=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
503
504(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 505(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e 506say things like:
507
508 *foo += 1;
509
510You CAN say
511
512 $foo = *foo;
513 $foo += 1;
514
515but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
516
517=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
518
519(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 520(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e 521
522=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
523
524(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 525(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e 526
57079c46 527=item Can't coerce array into hash
528
529(F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
530information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
531only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
532
a0d0e21e 533=item Can't create pipe mailbox
534
748a9306 535(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
536or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 537
538=item Can't declare %s in my
539
5f05dabc 540(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
a0d0e21e 541They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
542
543=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
544
545(S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
546
54310121 547=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 548
54310121 549(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
3fe9a6f1 550from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
a0d0e21e 551such.
552
8b1a09fc 553=item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
a0d0e21e 554
555(S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
556
557=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
558
559(S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
560/dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
561
562=item Can't do setegid!
563
564(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
565of suidperl.
566
567=item Can't do seteuid!
568
569(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
570
571=item Can't do setuid
572
573(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
574do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
575form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
576under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
577If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
578your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
579
580=item Can't do waitpid with flags
581
582(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
583without flags is emulated.
584
8b1a09fc 585=item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
a0d0e21e 586
587(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
588your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
589
590=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
591
592(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
593For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
594
595=item Can't exec "%s": %s
596
5f05dabc 597(W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
a0d0e21e 598program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
599were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
600executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
601#! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
602similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
603
604=item Can't exec %s
605
606(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
607what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
608mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
609
610=item Can't execute %s
611
2a92aaa0 612(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
613in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
614
615=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
616
617(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
618in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
619exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
620
621=item Can't find %s on PATH
622
a0d0e21e 623(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
2a92aaa0 624in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 625
626=item Can't find label %s
627
628(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
629for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
630
631=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
632
633(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
5f05dabc 634the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
a0d0e21e 635levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
636
fb73857a 637 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
638
639If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
640included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
641programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
a0d0e21e 642
643=item Can't fork
644
645(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
646
748a9306 647=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
648
649(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
650access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
651access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
652that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
653assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
654it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
655retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
656but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
5f05dabc 657routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
748a9306 658appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
659returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
660knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
661see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
662code takes stat buffers lightly.)
663
a0d0e21e 664=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
665
748a9306 666(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
667can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e 668
669=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
670
748a9306 671(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
672mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 673
674=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
675
676(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
677call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
5f05dabc 678you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
a0d0e21e 679L<perlfunc/goto>.
680
b150fb22 681=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
682
683(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
684(You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
685
706a304b 686=item Can't localize through a reference
4633a7c4 687
706a304b 688(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
689handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
690pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
691sure that $ref will still be a reference.
4633a7c4 692
748a9306 693=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
694
2ba9eb46 695(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
748a9306 696lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
697localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
698package name.
699
0ebe0038 700=item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
701
702(F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
703a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
704you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
705element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
706
4727527e 707=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
708
709(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
710but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
711in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
712doing C<make install>.
713
38b8243a 714=item Can't locate %s in @INC
a0d0e21e 715
7a2e2cd6 716(F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
54310121 717in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set the
718PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra library
719is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
a0d0e21e 720you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
721
722=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
723
724(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
725functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 726method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e 727
728=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
729
730(W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
731to exist.
732
3e3baf6d 733=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
734
735(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
736
a0d0e21e 737=item Can't modify %s in %s
738
739(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
5f05dabc 740change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 741
54310121 742=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e 743
744(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
745a NULL.
746
5f05dabc 747=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 748
5f05dabc 749(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e 750buffer.
751
752=item Can't open %s: %s
753
08e9d68e 754(S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
755filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
756switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
757is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
758on the command line.
a0d0e21e 759
760=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
761
762(W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
763try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
7e1af8bc 764IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
a0d0e21e 765and then read it in under a different file handle.
766
748a9306 767=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
768
769(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
8b1a09fc 770couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
771command line for writing.
748a9306 772
773=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
774
775(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
8b1a09fc 776couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
748a9306 777
778=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
779
780(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
8b1a09fc 781couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
782line for writing.
748a9306 783
784=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
785
786(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
787couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
788
a0d0e21e 789=item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
790
791(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
792
7bac28a0 793=item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
794
795(F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
796pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
797was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
798this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
799
a0d0e21e 800=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
801
802(S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
803you don't have write permission to the directory.
804
748a9306 805=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
806
807(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
808reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
809
a0d0e21e 810=item Can't reswap uid and euid
811
812(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
813of suidperl.
814
815=item Can't return outside a subroutine
816
817(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
818there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
819
820=item Can't stat script "%s"
821
822(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
823it open already. Bizarre.
824
825=item Can't swap uid and euid
826
827(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
828of suidperl.
829
830=item Can't take log of %g
831
fb73857a 832(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
833negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
834standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
835the negative numbers.
a0d0e21e 836
837=item Can't take sqrt of %g
838
839(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 840negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
841with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e 842
843=item Can't undef active subroutine
844
845(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
846however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
847redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
848
849=item Can't unshift
850
851(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
852as the main Perl stack.
853
854=item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
855
856(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
857it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
858so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
859message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
860
861=item Can't upgrade to undef
862
863(P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
864of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
865code calling sv_upgrade.
866
1d2dff63 867=item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
868
869(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
870Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
871provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
872
c07a80fd 873=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
874
875(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
8b1a09fc 876You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 877and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
878Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
879lexical variable.
880
a0d0e21e 881=item Can't use %s for loop variable
882
883(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
884
885=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
886
887(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
888reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
889test the type of the reference, if need be.
890
748a9306 891=item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
892
893(W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
894a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
5f05dabc 895to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
748a9306 896Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
897out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
898
44a8e56a 899=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
900
901(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
902are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
903
748a9306 904=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 905
906(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
907are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
908
909=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
910
911(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
54310121 912be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
a0d0e21e 913
a0d0e21e 914=item Can't use global %s in "my"
915
916(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
5f05dabc 917not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
a0d0e21e 918the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
919variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
920weren't.
921
748a9306 922=item Can't use subscript on %s
923
924(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
925subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
926didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
927
5f05dabc 928=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 929
930(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
931an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
932Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
933
b6c543e3 934=item Cannot find an opnumber for "%s"
935
936(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
937there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
938
e7ea3e70 939=item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
940
941(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
942opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
943package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
944
4599a1de 945=item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
946
947(W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
948with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
949If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
950expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
951backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
952
953=item Character class syntax [: :] is reserved for future extensions
954
955(W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
956with "[:" and ending with ":]" is reserved for future extensions.
957If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
958expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
959backslash: "\[:" and ":\]".
960
961=item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
962
963(W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
964beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
965If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
966expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
967backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
968
a0d0e21e 969=item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
970
971(W) A novice will sometimes say
972
973 chmod 777, $filename
974
975not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
976to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
977
8b1a09fc 978=item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
a0d0e21e 979
980(W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
981
7a2e2cd6 982=item Compilation failed in require
983
984(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
985Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
986were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
987
c3464db5 988=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
989
990(W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
991where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
992or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
993arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
994recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
995under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
996than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
997expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
998for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
999
a0d0e21e 1000=item connect() on closed fd
1001
1002(W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1003the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1004
4cee8e80 1005=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1006
1007(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1008inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1009workarounds.
1010
9607fc9c 1011=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1012
1013(S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1014inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1015workarounds.
1016
e7ea3e70 1017=item Copy method did not return a reference
1018
1019(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1020
a0d0e21e 1021=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1022
1023(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1024
1025=item corrupted regexp pointers
1026
1027(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1028expression compiler gave it.
1029
1030=item corrupted regexp program
1031
1032(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1033a valid magic number.
1034
1035=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1036
1037(W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
3e3baf6d 1038times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
a0d0e21e 1039recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1040case it indicates something else.
1041
fc36a67e 1042=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1043
1044(F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1045C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1046twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1047
4633a7c4 1048=item Did you mean &%s instead?
1049
1050(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1051
748a9306 1052=item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
a0d0e21e 1053
748a9306 1054(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1055On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1056
7e1af8bc 1057=item Died
5f05dabc 1058
1059(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1060you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1061
54310121 1062=item Do you need to predeclare %s?
748a9306 1063
1064(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1065found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1066name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1067because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1068"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1069referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1070to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1071can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1072declaration.
a0d0e21e 1073
1074=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1075
1076(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1077
1078=item do_study: out of memory
1079
1080(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1081
1082=item Duplicate free() ignored
1083
1084(S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1085been freed.
1086
4633a7c4 1087=item elseif should be elsif
1088
1089(S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1090ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1091named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1092unlikely to be what you want.
1093
a0d0e21e 1094=item END failed--cleanup aborted
1095
1096(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1097The interpreter is immediately exited.
1098
748a9306 1099=item Error converting file specification %s
1100
5f05dabc 1101(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1102specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1103single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1104passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1105case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1106
e4d48cc9 1107=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1108
1109(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1110that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1111See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1112
1113=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1114
1115(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1116but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1117in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1118
1119=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1120
1121(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
3c247ff3 1122zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1123interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
e4d48cc9 1124If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1125from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1126See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1127
fc36a67e 1128=item Excessively long <> operator
1129
1130(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1131Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1132filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1133variable and glob that.
1134
f86702cc 1135=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
a0d0e21e 1136
1137(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1138
1139=item Exiting eval via %s
1140
8b1a09fc 1141(W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
a0d0e21e 1142a goto, or a loop control statement.
1143
0a753a76 1144=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1145
1146(W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1147subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1148statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1149
a0d0e21e 1150=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1151
8b1a09fc 1152(W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
a0d0e21e 1153a goto, or a loop control statement.
1154
1155=item Exiting substitution via %s
1156
8b1a09fc 1157(W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
a0d0e21e 1158a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1159
7b8d334a 1160=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1161
1162(W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1163the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1164usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1165package, e.g. bless($ref, $p or 'MyPackage');
1166
748a9306 1167=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1168
748a9306 1169(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1170service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1171filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1172the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e 1173
1174=item fcntl is not implemented
1175
1176(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1177PDP-11 or something?
1178
1179=item Filehandle %s never opened
1180
1181(W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1182You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1183the FileHandle package.
1184
5f05dabc 1185=item Filehandle %s opened for only input
a0d0e21e 1186
1187(W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1188intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
8b1a09fc 1189"+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
5f05dabc 1190you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
8b1a09fc 1191L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1192
5f05dabc 1193=item Filehandle opened for only input
a0d0e21e 1194
1195(W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1196intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
8b1a09fc 1197"+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
5f05dabc 1198you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
8b1a09fc 1199L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1200
1201=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1202
1203(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1204a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1205that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1206the name.
1207
1208=item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1209
1210(F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1211a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1212that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1213the name.
1214
1215=item Format %s redefined
1216
1217(W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1218
1219 {
1220 local $^W = 0;
1221 eval "format NAME =...";
1222 }
1223
1224=item Format not terminated
1225
1226(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1227to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1228
1229=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1230
1231(W) You said
1232
1233 if ($foo = 123)
1234
1235when you meant
1236
1237 if ($foo == 123)
1238
1239(or something like that).
1240
1241=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1242
1243(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1244
1245=item gethostent not implemented
1246
1247(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1248because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1249on the Internet.
1250
1251=item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1252
1253(W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1254Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1255
748a9306 1256=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1257
1258(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1259C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1260
1261
a0d0e21e 1262=item Glob not terminated
1263
1264(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1265a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1266finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1267the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1268
1269=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1270
68dc0745 1271(F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1272must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
a0d0e21e 1273say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1274
1275=item goto must have label
1276
1277(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1278unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1279
1280=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1281
1282(S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1283existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1284an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1285
1286=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1287
1288(D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1289is now heavily deprecated.
1290
8903cb82 1291=item Identifier too long
1292
1293(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 1294about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1295names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1296versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 1297
8b1a09fc 1298=item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
a0d0e21e 1299
8b1a09fc 1300(W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
1301to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
5f05dabc 1302names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
1303appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
54310121 1304might directly modify logical name tables and introduce nonstandard names,
8b1a09fc 1305or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
a0d0e21e 1306
4fdae800 1307=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1308
1309(F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1310error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
54310121 1311multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1312
1313Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
68dc0745 1314either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
54310121 1315transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
68dc0745 1316properly converting the text file format.
1317
1318Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1319text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1320handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1321
1322In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1323converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1324executed.
4fdae800 1325
a0d0e21e 1326=item Illegal division by zero
1327
1328(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1329logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1330
1331=item Illegal modulus zero
1332
1333(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1334don't take to this kindly.
1335
1336=item Illegal octal digit
1337
1338(F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1339
748a9306 1340=item Illegal octal digit ignored
1341
1342(W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1343of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1344
6ff81951 1345=item Illegal hex digit ignored
1346
1347(W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F in a
1348hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1349before the illegal character.
1350
54310121 1351=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1352
1353(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1354following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1355
9607fc9c 1356=item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1357
1358(F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1359array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1360used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1361instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1362indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1363program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1364that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1365
a0d0e21e 1366=item Insecure dependency in %s
1367
8b1a09fc 1368(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
a0d0e21e 1369The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1370or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1371labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1372who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1373used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1374for more information.
1375
1376=item Insecure directory in %s
1377
1378(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
8b1a09fc 1379script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
a0d0e21e 1380See L<perlsec>.
1381
62f468fc 1382=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e 1383
1384(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 1385setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1386C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
a0d0e21e 1387potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1388known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1389
bbce6d69 1390=item Integer overflow in hex number
1391
1392(S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
1393architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
13940xFFFFFFFF.
1395
1396=item Integer overflow in octal number
1397
1398(S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
1399architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
1400037777777777.
1401
748a9306 1402=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1403
1404(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
5f05dabc 1405of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
2ba9eb46 1406whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
748a9306 1407script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
1408has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1409this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1410and execute the specified command.
1411
a0d0e21e 1412=item internal disaster in regexp
1413
1414(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1415
5cd24f17 1416=item internal error: glob failed
1417
1418(P) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1419and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. This may mean that your csh (C shell) is
1420broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1421config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1422were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1423empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1424think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1425C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1426
a0d0e21e 1427=item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1428
1429(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1430
1431=item invalid [] range in regexp
1432
1433(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1434greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1435
c635e13b 1436=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1437
878e08df 1438(W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
c635e13b 1439See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1440
96e4d5b1 1441=item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1442
8903cb82 1443(F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
fb73857a 1444(W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1445ignored.
96e4d5b1 1446
1447=item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1448
8903cb82 1449(F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
fb73857a 1450(W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1451ignored.
96e4d5b1 1452
a0d0e21e 1453=item ioctl is not implemented
1454
1455(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1456strange for a machine that supports C.
1457
1458=item junk on end of regexp
1459
1460(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1461
1462=item Label not found for "last %s"
1463
1464(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1465loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1466See L<perlfunc/last>.
1467
1468=item Label not found for "next %s"
1469
1470(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1471that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1472L<perlfunc/last>.
1473
1474=item Label not found for "redo %s"
1475
1476(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1477that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1478L<perlfunc/last>.
1479
1480=item listen() on closed fd
1481
1482(W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1483the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1484
a0d0e21e 1485=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1486
1487(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 1488doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 1489
1490=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1491
1492(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1493by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1494ended earlier on the current line.
1495
1496=item Misplaced _ in number
1497
1498(W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1499
1500=item Missing $ on loop variable
1501
8b1a09fc 1502(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1503mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
a0d0e21e 1504one line to the next.
1505
1506=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1507
1508(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1509"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1510
748a9306 1511=item Missing operator before %s?
1512
1513(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1514found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1515
a0d0e21e 1516=item Missing right bracket
1517
1518(F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1519As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1520editing.
1521
a0d0e21e 1522=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1523
1524(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 1525constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e 1526catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1527
1528 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1529 mod(2);
1530
1531Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1532
4fe4fdb3 1533=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
a0d0e21e 1534
1535(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1536subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1537backwards.
1538
4fe4fdb3 1539=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
a0d0e21e 1540
1541(F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1542be created for some peculiar reason.
1543
1544=item Module name must be constant
1545
1546(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1547
1548=item msg%s not implemented
1549
1550(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1551
1552=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1553
8b1a09fc 1554(W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1555like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1556
1557=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1558
68dc0745 1559(W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1560If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1561it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
1562provided for just this purpose.
a0d0e21e 1563
1564=item Negative length
1565
1566(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1567that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1568
1569=item nested *?+ in regexp
1570
5f05dabc 1571(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
a0d0e21e 1572things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1573
5f05dabc 1574Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
a0d0e21e 1575to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1576
1577=item No #! line
1578
1579(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1580even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1581
1582=item No %s allowed while running setuid
1583
1584(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1585script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1586another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1587See L<perlsec>.
1588
1589=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1590
1591(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1592
1593=item No comma allowed after %s
1594
1595(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1596allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1597Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1598
0a753a76 1599One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1600constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1601importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1602does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1603explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1604L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1605would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1606remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1607constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1608list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1609this error was triggered?
1610
748a9306 1611=item No command into which to pipe on command line
1612
1613(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
54310121 1614and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
748a9306 1615want to pipe the output from this command.
1616
a0d0e21e 1617=item No DB::DB routine defined
1618
1619(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1620but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1621didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1622statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1623automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1624right.
1625
1626=item No dbm on this machine
1627
1628(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 1629supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 1630
1631=item No DBsub routine
1632
1633(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1634but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1635didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1636ordinary subroutine call.
1637
8b1a09fc 1638=item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
748a9306 1639
1640(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
8b1a09fc 1641and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1642the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 1643
8b1a09fc 1644=item No input file after E<lt> on command line
748a9306 1645
1646(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
8b1a09fc 1647and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1648from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 1649
8b1a09fc 1650=item No output file after E<gt> on command line
748a9306 1651
1652(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
8b1a09fc 1653and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
54310121 1654where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 1655
8b1a09fc 1656=item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
748a9306 1657
1658(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
8b1a09fc 1659and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1660name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 1661
a0d0e21e 1662=item No Perl script found in input
1663
1664(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1665with #! and containing the word "perl".
1666
1667=item No setregid available
1668
1669(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1670your system.
1671
1672=item No setreuid available
1673
1674(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1675your system.
1676
1677=item No space allowed after B<-I>
1678
1679(F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1680intervening space.
1681
57079c46 1682=item No such array field
1683
1684(F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
1685not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
1686array indices for that to work.
1687
f1192cee 1688=item No such field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
1689
1690(F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
1691does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
1692the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
1693is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
1694
748a9306 1695=item No such pipe open
1696
1697(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1698close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1699an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1700
a0d0e21e 1701=item No such signal: SIG%s
1702
1703(W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1704Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1705
1706=item Not a CODE reference
1707
1708(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1709subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1710use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1711See also L<perlref>.
1712
1713=item Not a format reference
1714
1715(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1716format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1717
1718=item Not a GLOB reference
1719
55497cff 1720(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
a0d0e21e 1721a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1722something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1723what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1724
1725=item Not a HASH reference
1726
1727(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1728found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1729function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1730
1731=item Not a perl script
1732
1733(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1734even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1735mention perl.
1736
1737=item Not a SCALAR reference
1738
1739(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1740found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1741function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1742
1743=item Not a subroutine reference
1744
1745(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1746subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1747use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1748See also L<perlref>.
1749
e7ea3e70 1750=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e 1751
1752(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 1753doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 1754
1755=item Not an ARRAY reference
1756
1757(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1758found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1759function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1760
1761=item Not enough arguments for %s
1762
1763(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1764
1765=item Not enough format arguments
1766
1767(W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1768See L<perlform>.
1769
1770=item Null filename used
1771
5f05dabc 1772(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
a0d0e21e 1773that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1774
55497cff 1775=item Null picture in formline
1776
1777(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1778specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1779supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1780
a0d0e21e 1781=item NULL OP IN RUN
1782
1783(P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1784
1785=item Null realloc
1786
1787(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1788
1789=item NULL regexp argument
1790
5f05dabc 1791(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e 1792
1793=item NULL regexp parameter
1794
1795(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1796
fc36a67e 1797=item Number too long
1798
1799(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
1800about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
1801Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
1802try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
1803
1930e939 1804=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 1805
1930e939 1806(S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
1807is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 1808
bbce6d69 1809=item Offset outside string
1810
1811(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1812pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1813The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1814will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1815
a0d0e21e 1816=item oops: oopsAV
1817
1818(S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1819
1820=item oops: oopsHV
1821
1822(S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1823
56f7f34b 1824=item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
44a8e56a 1825
e7ea3e70 1826(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1827no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1828terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1829operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1830true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 1831
748a9306 1832=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1833
1834(S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1835expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1836to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1837For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1838if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1839
a0d0e21e 1840=item Out of memory for yacc stack
1841
1842(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1843but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1844
1b979e0a 1845=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 1846
55497cff 1847(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
54310121 1848remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
eff9c6e2 1849
1850The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1851depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1852However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1853an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
55497cff 1854error is trappable I<once>.
1855
1b979e0a 1856=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
55497cff 1857
1858(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1859remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1860the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1861a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1862
1b979e0a 1863=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
1864
1865(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
1866is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
1867instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1868
a0d0e21e 1869=item page overflow
1870
1871(W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1872See L<perlform>.
1873
1874=item panic: ck_grep
1875
1876(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1877
1878=item panic: ck_split
1879
1880(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1881
1882=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1883
1884(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1885are in the savestack.
1886
1887=item panic: die %s
1888
1889(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1890it wasn't an eval context.
1891
1892=item panic: do_match
1893
1894(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1895
1896=item panic: do_split
1897
1898(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1899
1900=item panic: do_subst
1901
1902(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1903
1904=item panic: do_trans
1905
1906(P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1907
c635e13b 1908=item panic: frexp
1909
1910(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
1911
a0d0e21e 1912=item panic: goto
1913
1914(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1915and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1916
1917=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1918
1919(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1920
1921=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1922
1923(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1924
1925=item panic: last
1926
1927(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1928it wasn't a block context.
1929
1930=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1931
5f05dabc 1932(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
a0d0e21e 1933
1934=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1935
1936(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1937invalid enum on the top of it.
1938
1939=item panic: malloc
1940
1941(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1942
1943=item panic: mapstart
1944
1945(P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1946
1947=item panic: null array
1948
1949(P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1950
1951=item panic: pad_alloc
1952
1953(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1954and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1955
1956=item panic: pad_free curpad
1957
1958(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1959and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1960
1961=item panic: pad_free po
1962
1963(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1964
1965=item panic: pad_reset curpad
1966
1967(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1968and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1969
1970=item panic: pad_sv po
1971
1972(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1973
1974=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1975
1976(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1977and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1978
1979=item panic: pad_swipe po
1980
1981(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1982
1983=item panic: pp_iter
1984
1985(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1986
1987=item panic: realloc
1988
1989(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1990
1991=item panic: restartop
1992
1993(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1994didn't supply the destination.
1995
1996=item panic: return
1997
1998(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1999then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2000
2001=item panic: scan_num
2002
2003(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2004
2005=item panic: sv_insert
2006
2007(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2008was string.
2009
2010=item panic: top_env
2011
6224f72b 2012(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 2013
2014=item panic: yylex
2015
2016(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2017
7b8d334a 2018=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 2019
2020(W) You said something like
2021
2022 my $foo, $bar = @_;
2023
2024when you meant
2025
2026 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2027
2028Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2029
2030=item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2031
2032(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2033than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2034anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2035
2036=item Permission denied
2037
2038(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2039
748a9306 2040=item pid %d not a child
2041
2042(W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2043isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2044perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2045
a0d0e21e 2046=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2047
2048(F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2049the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2050
bbce6d69 2051=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2052
774d564b 2053(W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2054strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2055as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
7b8d334a 2056parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2057
774d564b 2058You probably wrote something like this:
2059
54310121 2060 @list = qw(
774d564b 2061 a # a comment
bbce6d69 2062 b # another comment
774d564b 2063 );
bbce6d69 2064
2065when you should have written this:
2066
774d564b 2067 @list = qw(
54310121 2068 a
2069 b
774d564b 2070 );
2071
2072If you really want comments, build your list the
2073old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2074
2075 @list = (
2076 'a', # a comment
2077 'b', # another comment
2078 );
bbce6d69 2079
2080=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2081
774d564b 2082(W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
68dc0745 2083aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
774d564b 2084delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2085used.)
bbce6d69 2086
54310121 2087You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 2088
774d564b 2089 qw! a, b, c !;
2090
2091which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2092commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 2093
774d564b 2094 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 2095
a0d0e21e 2096=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2097
2098(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2099Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2100end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2101Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2102
2103=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2104
2105(S) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 2106
a0d0e21e 2107 open FOO || die;
2108
2109is now misinterpreted as
2110
2111 open(FOO || die);
2112
68dc0745 2113because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2114and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2115put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2116instead of "||".
a0d0e21e 2117
2118=item print on closed filehandle %s
2119
2120(W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2121Check your logic flow.
2122
2123=item printf on closed filehandle %s
2124
2125(W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2126Check your logic flow.
2127
2128=item Probable precedence problem on %s
2129
54310121 2130(W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
a0d0e21e 2131which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2132last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2133
2134 open FOO || die;
2135
3fe9a6f1 2136=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 2137
3fe9a6f1 2138(S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2139or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 2140
89ea2908 2141=item Range iterator outside integer range
2142
2143(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2144are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2145One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2146increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2147
8b1a09fc 2148=item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
a0d0e21e 2149
2150(W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2151Check your logic flow.
2152
2153=item Reallocation too large: %lx
2154
54310121 2155(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 2156
2157=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2158
2159(F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2160desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2161which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2162
3e0ccd42 2163=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e 2164
2165(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2166an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2167
3e0ccd42 2168=item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2169
2170(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2171method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2172
1930e939 2173=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2174
2175(W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2176an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2177usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2178to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a 2179
2180 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2181 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2182 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2183 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2184
a0d0e21e 2185=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2186
2187(W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2188reference count of other than 1.
2189
fb73857a 2190=item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2191
2192(F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2193could match an empty string.
2194
a0d0e21e 2195=item regexp memory corruption
2196
2197(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2198expression compiler gave it.
2199
2200=item regexp out of space
2201
2202(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2203
2204=item regexp too big
2205
2ba9eb46 2206(F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
a0d0e21e 2207address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
2208the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
2209Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
2210way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
2211
2212=item Reversed %s= operator
2213
2214(W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2215comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2216
2217=item Runaway format
2218
2219(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2220produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2221199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2222themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2223shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2224
2225=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2226
a6006777 2227(W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
a0d0e21e 2228an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
8b1a09fc 2229The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2230assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
a0d0e21e 2231like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
5f05dabc 2232subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 2233
748a9306 2234On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 2235element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306 2236Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2237L<perlref>.
2238
a6006777 2239=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2240
2241(W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2242a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2243The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2244assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2245like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2246subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2247
2248On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2249element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2250Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2251L<perlref>.
2252
a0d0e21e 2253=item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2254
54310121 2255(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2256or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
a0d0e21e 2257
2258=item Search pattern not terminated
2259
2260(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2261construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 2262Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 2263
96e4d5b1 2264=item %sseek() on unopened file
a0d0e21e 2265
96e4d5b1 2266(W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2267was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 2268
2269=item select not implemented
2270
2271(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2272
2273=item sem%s not implemented
2274
2275(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2276
2277=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2278
2279(S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2280that had previously been marked as free.
2281
2282=item Semicolon seems to be missing
2283
2284(W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2285or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2286
2287=item Send on closed socket
2288
2289(W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2290Check your logic flow.
2291
1b1626e4 2292=item Sequence (? incomplete
7b8d334a 2293
1b1626e4 2294(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2295See L<perlre>.
2296
a0d0e21e 2297=item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2298
2299(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
5f05dabc 2300parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2301
2302=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2303
2304(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2305but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2306
2307=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2308
2309(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2310See L<perlre>.
2311
a5f75d66 2312=item Server error
2313
9607fc9c 2314Also known as "500 Server error".
2315
2316B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2317
2318You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2319CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2320tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2321from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2322server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2323for more information:
2324
2325 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/idiots-guide.html
2326 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/perl-cgi-faq.html
2327 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2328 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2329 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
a5f75d66 2330
a0d0e21e 2331=item setegid() not implemented
2332
8b1a09fc 2333(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
a0d0e21e 2334the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2335think so.
2336
2337=item seteuid() not implemented
2338
8b1a09fc 2339(F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
a0d0e21e 2340the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2341think so.
2342
2343=item setrgid() not implemented
2344
8b1a09fc 2345(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
a0d0e21e 2346the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2347think so.
2348
2349=item setruid() not implemented
2350
1f8d2005 2351(F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
a0d0e21e 2352the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2353think so.
2354
2355=item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2356
2357(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2358because the world might have written on it already.
2359
2360=item shm%s not implemented
2361
2362(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2363
2364=item shutdown() on closed fd
2365
2366(W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2367
f86702cc 2368=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 2369
2370(W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2371put it into the wrong package?
2372
2373=item sort is now a reserved word
2374
2375(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2376But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2377
2378=item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2379
2380(F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
4633a7c4 2381it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
a0d0e21e 2382See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2383
2384=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2385
2386(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2387or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2388
2389=item Split loop
2390
2391(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2392more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2393See L<perlfunc/split>.
2394
8b1a09fc 2395=item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
a0d0e21e 2396
2397(W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
54310121 2398on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 2399
2400=item Statement unlikely to be reached
2401
2402(W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2403This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2404there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2405which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2406by itself.
2407
e7ea3e70 2408=item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2409
2410(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2411Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2412may break this.
2413
a0d0e21e 2414=item Subroutine %s redefined
2415
2416(W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2417
2418 {
2419 local $^W = 0;
2420 eval "sub name { ... }";
2421 }
2422
2423=item Substitution loop
2424
2425(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2426substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
68dc0745 2427input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5f05dabc 2428L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
a0d0e21e 2429
2430=item Substitution pattern not terminated
2431
2432(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2433construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 2434Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 2435
2436=item Substitution replacement not terminated
2437
2438(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2439construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 2440Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 2441
2442=item substr outside of string
2443
3e3baf6d 2444(S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2445string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2446length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2447mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2448of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 2449
f86702cc 2450=item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
a0d0e21e 2451
2452(F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2453version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2454
2455=item syntax error
2456
2457(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2458
2459 A keyword is misspelled.
2460 A semicolon is missing.
2461 A comma is missing.
2462 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2463 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2464 A closing quote is missing.
2465
2466Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2467error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2468The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2469it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 2470before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e 2471Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2472the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2473C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2474if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2475
cb1a09d0 2476=item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2477
8b1a09fc 2478(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
3a52c276 2479instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
cb1a09d0 2480into Perl yourself.
2481
a0d0e21e 2482=item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
2483
5f05dabc 2484(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm",
a0d0e21e 2485or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
2486
2487=item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2488
2489(W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2490Check your logic flow.
2491
fc36a67e 2492=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2493
2494(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2495nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2496
8903cb82 2497=item tell() on unopened file
a0d0e21e 2498
8903cb82 2499(W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2500never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 2501
8b1a09fc 2502=item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
a0d0e21e 2503
2504(W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2505open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2506
2507=item That use of $[ is unsupported
2508
8b1a09fc 2509(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
5f05dabc 2510a compiler directive. You may say only one of
a0d0e21e 2511
2512 $[ = 0;
2513 $[ = 1;
2514 ...
2515 local $[ = 0;
2516 local $[ = 1;
2517 ...
2518
2519This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2520out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2521
2522=item The %s function is unimplemented
2523
2524The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2525to the probings of Configure.
2526
f86702cc 2527=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
a0d0e21e 2528
2529(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2530probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 2531think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e 2532will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2533will deny it.
2534
2535=item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2536
2537(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2538if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2539the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2540
2541=item times not implemented
2542
2543(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2544you're not running on Unix.
2545
2546=item Too few args to syscall
2547
2548(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2549system call to call, silly dilly.
2550
9607fc9c 2551=item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2552
2553(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
8cc95fdb 2554B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2555This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2556script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2557So Perl gives up.
f86702cc 2558
9607fc9c 2559If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2560mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2561by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2562first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
f86702cc 2563
9607fc9c 2564If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2565B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
f86702cc 2566
8cc95fdb 2567=item Too late for "-%s" option
2568
2569(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2570B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2571are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2572
cb1a09d0 2573=item Too many ('s
2574
2575=item Too many )'s
2576
2577(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3a52c276 2578of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2579Perl yourself.
cb1a09d0 2580
a0d0e21e 2581=item Too many args to syscall
2582
5f05dabc 2583(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e 2584
2585=item Too many arguments for %s
2586
2587(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2588
2589=item trailing \ in regexp
2590
2591(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2592it. See L<perlre>.
2593
2c268ad5 2594=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e 2595
2596(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 2597or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
2598C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 2599
2c268ad5 2600=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 2601
2602(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2603construct.
2604
2605=item truncate not implemented
2606
2607(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2608Configure knows about.
2609
2610=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2611
2612(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 2613certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2614%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e 2615{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2616
2617=item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2618
eec2d3df 2619(W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
2620literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2621
2622=item umask not implemented
2623
2624(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
2625to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e 2626
4633a7c4 2627=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2628
2629(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2630
a0d0e21e 2631=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2632
2633(W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2634contexts were entered and left.
2635
2636=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2637
2638(W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2639values were temporarily localized.
2640
2641=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2642
2643(W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2644were entered and left.
2645
2646=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2647
2648(W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2649scalars were allocated and freed.
2650
2651=item Undefined format "%s" called
2652
2653(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2654another package? See L<perlform>.
2655
2656=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2657
2658(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2659it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2660
2661=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2662
2663(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2664has since been undefined.
2665
2666=item Undefined subroutine called
2667
2668(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2669or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2670
2671=item Undefined subroutine in sort
2672
2673(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2674have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2675
4633a7c4 2676=item Undefined top format "%s" called
2677
2678(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2679another package? See L<perlform>.
2680
20408e3c 2681=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
2682
2683(W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
2684This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
2685
a0d0e21e 2686=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2687
2688(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2689representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2690
2691=item Unknown BYTEORDER
2692
5f05dabc 2693(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
a0d0e21e 2694
2695=item unmatched () in regexp
2696
2697(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2698expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
5f05dabc 2699the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2700
2701=item Unmatched right bracket
2702
2703(F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2704ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2705rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2706last editing.
2707
2708=item unmatched [] in regexp
2709
2710(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2711include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2712See L<perlre>.
2713
2714=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2715
54310121 2716(W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
a0d0e21e 2717It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2718an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2719
54310121 2720=item Unrecognized character %s
a0d0e21e 2721
54310121 2722(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
2723in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
2724script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 2725
2726=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2727
2728(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2729Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2730
90248788 2731=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 2732
2733(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2734(If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2735supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2736
2737=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2738
2739(W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2740failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
54310121 2741because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e 2742
2743=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2744
2745(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2746
54310121 2747=item Unsupported function fork
2748
2749(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
2750
2751Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
2752Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
2753the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
2754
a0d0e21e 2755=item Unsupported function %s
2756
7b8d334a 2757(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
a0d0e21e 2758At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2759
2760=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2761
2762(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2763least that's what Configure thought.
2764
8b1a09fc 2765=item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
a0d0e21e 2766
2767(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2768a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2769finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2770the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2771
5cd24f17 2772=item Use of "$$<digit>" to mean "${$}<digit>" is deprecated
2773
2774(D) Perl versions before 5.004 misinterpreted any type marker followed
2775by "$" and a digit. For example, "$$0" was incorrectly taken to mean
2776"${$}0" instead of "${$0}". This bug is (mostly) fixed in Perl 5.004.
2777
2778However, the developers of Perl 5.004 could not fix this bug completely,
2779because at least two widely-used modules depend on the old meaning of
2780"$$0" in a string. So Perl 5.004 still interprets "$$<digit>" in the
2781old (broken) way inside strings; but it generates this message as a
2782warning. And in Perl 5.005, this special treatment will cease.
2783
a0d0e21e 2784=item Use of $# is deprecated
2785
8b1a09fc 2786(D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
a0d0e21e 2787Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2788
2789=item Use of $* is deprecated
2790
4a6725af 2791(D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
a0d0e21e 2792you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2793use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2794action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2795
748a9306 2796=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2797
5f05dabc 2798(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2799only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
748a9306 2800
8b1a09fc 2801=item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
4633a7c4 2802
2803(D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
3fe9a6f1 2804wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4633a7c4 2805
a0d0e21e 2806=item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2807
2808(D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2809subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2810a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2811
dc848c6f 2812=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
2813
5cd24f17 2814(D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
2815up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
2816be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
7b8d334a 2817as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
dc848c6f 2818
2819This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
2820only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
2821of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
2822interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
2823use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
2824
2825The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
2826non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
2827depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
2828C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
2829
fb73857a 2830In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
2831should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
7b8d334a 2832C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
fb73857a 2833
85b81015 2834=item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
2835
2836(D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
2837may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
2838the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
2839different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
2840names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
2841e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
2842
dc848c6f 2843=item Use of %s is deprecated
2844
2845(D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2846because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2847bad side effects.
2848
a0d0e21e 2849=item Use of uninitialized value
2850
2851(W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2852interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2853warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2854
8202fd39 2855=item Useless use of "re" pragma
2856
2857(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
2858
a0d0e21e 2859=item Useless use of %s in void context
2860
2861(W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2862with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2863from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2864this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2865your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2866if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2867
2868 $one, $two = 1, 2;
2869
2870when you meant to say
2871
2872 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2873
748a9306 2874Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2875reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2876example, if you say
2877
2878 $array = (1,2);
2879
2880when you should have said
2881
2882 $array = [1,2];
2883
2884The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2885while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2886a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2887throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2888L<perlref> for more on this.
2889
55497cff 2890=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
2891
2892(W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
2893valid when C<untie> was called.
2894
68dc0745 2895=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 2896
68dc0745 2897(W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
2898or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
2899value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
2900probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
2901expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
a6006777 2902
9607fc9c 2903=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
4633a7c4 2904
2905(F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2906that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2907something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2908by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2909on the front of your variable.
2910
44a8e56a 2911=item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
2912
2913(W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
2914subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
2915(innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
2916the outermost subroutine. For example:
2917
2918 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
2919
2920If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
2921indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
2922as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
2923referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
2924the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
2925*first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
2926you want.
2927
2928In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
2929subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
2930support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
2931subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
2932
2933=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
2934
2935(W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
2936variable defined in an outer subroutine.
2937
2938When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
2939the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
2940*first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
2941call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
2942subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
2943other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
2944
2945Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
2946lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
2947will I<never> share the given variable.
2948
2949This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
2950anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
2951reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
54310121 2952they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
44a8e56a 2953variables.
2954
f86702cc 2955=item Variable syntax
cb1a09d0 2956
2957(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3a52c276 2958of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2959Perl yourself.
cb1a09d0 2960
3e6e419a 2961=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2962
2963(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2964
2965 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2966 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2967 LC_ALL = "En_US",
2968 LANG = (unset)
2969 are supported and installed on your system.
2970 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2971
2972Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2973settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2974This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
2975administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
2976not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
2977is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
2978script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
2979will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
2980fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2981
7e1af8bc 2982=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 2983
2984(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
2985you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
2986
f86702cc 2987=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 2988
8b1a09fc 2989(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
5f05dabc 2990close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
a0d0e21e 2991
5f05dabc 2992=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 2993
2994(S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2995binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2996unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2997has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2998
2999 rand + 5;
3000
3001you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3002
3003 rand() + 5;
3004
3005but in actual fact, you got
3006
3007 rand(+5);
3008
5f05dabc 3009So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 3010
3011=item Write on closed filehandle
3012
3013(W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3014Check your logic flow.
3015
3016=item X outside of string
3017
3018(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3019the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3020
3021=item x outside of string
3022
3023(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3024the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3025
3026=item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3027
3028(F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3029
3030=item Xsub called in sort
3031
3032(F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3033
3034=item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3035
3036(F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3037already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3038Use a filename instead.
3039
3040=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3041
5f05dabc 3042(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 3043sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3044about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3045the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3046
3047=item You need to quote "%s"
3048
3049(W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3050already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3051will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3052probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3053
3054=item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
3055
3056(W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3057Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3058See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
3059
3060=item \1 better written as $1
3061
3062(W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
5f05dabc 3063of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
a0d0e21e 3064substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3065because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3066if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3067
8b1a09fc 3068=item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
748a9306 3069
3070(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3071found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
8b1a09fc 3072'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
748a9306 3073
8b1a09fc 3074=item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
748a9306 3075
3076(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3077thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3078command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3079from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3080streams, such as
3081
3082 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3083 while (<STDIN>) {
3084 print;
3085 print OUT;
3086 }
3087 close OUT;
3088
774d564b 3089=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
33c8a3fe 3090
774d564b 3091(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3092version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
33c8a3fe 3093
3094=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3095
dc848c6f 3096(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
33c8a3fe 3097
3098 prefix1;prefix2
3099
3100or
3101
3102 prefix1 prefix2
3103
dc848c6f 3104with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3105of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3106may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3107"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
33c8a3fe 3108
3109=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3110
54310121 3111(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
dc848c6f 3112C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
33c8a3fe 3113
3114=item Process terminated by SIG%s
3115
3116(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
dc848c6f 3117applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3118port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3119L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3120in F<README.os2>.
33c8a3fe 3121
a0d0e21e 3122=back
3123