3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (non-trappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that will be
20 called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
24 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
25 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
26 The symbols C<"%-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
30 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
32 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34 if you want to localize a package variable.
36 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope
38 (S) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectively
39 eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always
40 a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
41 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
44 =item "no" not allowed in expression
46 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
49 =item "use" not allowed in expression
51 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
54 =item % may only be used in unpack
56 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
57 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
58 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
60 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
62 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
63 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
64 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
66 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
68 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
73 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
75 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
80 or a hash slice, such as
82 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
83 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
85 =item %s did not return a true value
87 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
88 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
89 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
90 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
92 =item %s found where operator expected
94 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
95 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
96 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
97 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
99 =item %s had compilation errors.
101 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
103 =item %s has too many errors.
105 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
106 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
108 =item %s matches null string many times
110 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
111 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
113 =item %s never introduced
115 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
116 before it could possibly have been used.
120 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
122 =item %s: Command not found.
124 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
125 of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
128 =item %s: Expression syntax.
130 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
131 of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
134 =item %s: Undefined variable.
136 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
137 of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
142 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
143 instead of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
146 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
148 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
149 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
151 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
153 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
154 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
156 =item 500 Server error
160 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
162 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
163 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
165 =item @ outside of string
167 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
168 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
170 =item accept() on closed fd
172 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
173 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
175 =item Allocation too large: %lx
177 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
179 =item Allocation too large
181 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes.
183 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
185 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
187 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
189 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
190 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
191 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
193 =item Args must match #! line
195 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
196 with match the arguments specified on the #! line.
198 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric
200 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
201 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
202 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
204 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
206 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
207 is now heavily deprecated.
209 =item assertion botched: %s
211 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
213 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
215 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
217 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
219 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
220 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
221 know which context to supply to the right side.
223 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
225 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
226 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
229 =item Attempt to free non-existent shared string
231 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
232 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
233 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
234 that can no longer be found in the table.
236 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
238 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
239 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
240 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
241 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
244 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
246 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
248 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
250 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
251 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
252 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
253 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
254 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
255 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
257 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
259 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
260 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
261 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
263 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
265 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
266 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
267 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
268 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
270 =item Bad associative array
272 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
274 =item Bad filehandle: %s
276 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
277 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
278 did it in another package.
280 =item Bad free() ignored
282 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
283 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
284 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
286 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
287 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
288 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
291 =item Bad name after %s::
293 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
294 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
303 $sym = "mypack::$var";
305 =item Bad symbol for array
307 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
308 wasn't a symbol table entry.
310 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
312 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
313 wasn't a symbol table entry.
315 =item Bad symbol for hash
317 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
318 wasn't a symbol table entry.
320 =item Badly placed ()'s
322 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
323 of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
326 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
328 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
329 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
331 =item bind() on closed fd
333 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
334 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
336 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
338 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
340 =item Callback called exit
342 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
343 exited by calling exit.
345 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
347 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
348 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
349 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
350 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
352 =item Can't "last" outside a block
354 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
355 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
356 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
357 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
358 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
359 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
361 =item Can't "next" outside a block
363 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
364 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
365 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
366 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
367 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
369 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
371 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
372 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
373 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
374 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
375 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
377 =item Can't bless non-reference value
379 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
380 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
382 =item Can't break at that line
384 (S) A warning intended for while running within the debugger, indicating
385 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
388 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
390 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
391 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
392 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
394 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
396 (F) A method call must know what package it's supposed to run in. It
397 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
398 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
399 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
401 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
403 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
404 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
405 neither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)
406 Something like this will reproduce the error:
409 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
410 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
412 =item Can't chdir to %s
414 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
415 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
417 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
419 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
420 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
430 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
432 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
434 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
435 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
437 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
439 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
440 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
442 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
444 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
445 or other plumbing problems.
447 =item Can't declare %s in my
449 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
450 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
452 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
454 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
456 =item Can't do in-place edit without backup
458 (F) You're on a system such as MSDOS that gets confused if you try reading
459 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say B<-i>C<.bak>, or some
462 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
464 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
466 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
468 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
469 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
471 =item Can't do setegid!
473 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
476 =item Can't do seteuid!
478 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
480 =item Can't do setuid
482 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
483 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
484 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
485 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
486 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
487 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
489 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
491 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
492 without flags is emulated.
494 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
496 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
497 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
499 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
501 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
502 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
504 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
506 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
507 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
508 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
509 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
510 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
511 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
515 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
516 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
517 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
519 =item Can't execute %s
521 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
522 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions.
524 =item Can't find label %s
526 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
527 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
529 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
531 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
532 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
533 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
535 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.)
539 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
541 =item Unsupported function fork
543 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
545 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
546 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
547 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
549 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
551 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
552 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
553 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
554 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
555 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
556 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
557 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
558 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
559 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
560 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
561 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
562 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
563 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
564 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
566 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
568 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
569 can't retrieve its name for later use.
571 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
573 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
574 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
576 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
578 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
579 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
580 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
583 =item Can't localize a reference
585 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which is not allowed because
586 the compiler can't determine whether $ref will end up pointing to anything
587 with a symbol table entry, and a symbol table entry is necessary to
590 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
592 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
593 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
594 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
597 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
599 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
600 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set
601 the PERL5LIB environment variable to say where the extra library is,
602 or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
603 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
605 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
607 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
608 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
609 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
611 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
613 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
618 (F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while trying to process
619 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
621 =item Can't modify %s in %s
623 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
624 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
626 =item Can't modify non-existent substring
628 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
631 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
633 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
636 =item Can't open %s: %s
638 (S) An inplace edit couldn't open the original file for the indicated reason.
639 Usually this is because you don't have read permission for the file.
641 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
643 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
644 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
645 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
646 and then read it in under a different file handle.
648 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
650 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
651 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
652 command line for writing.
654 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
656 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
657 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
659 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
661 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
662 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
665 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
667 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
668 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
670 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
672 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
674 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
676 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
677 you don't have write permission to the directory.
679 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
681 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
682 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
684 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
686 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
689 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
691 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
692 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
694 =item Can't stat script "%s"
696 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
697 it open already. Bizarre.
699 =item Can't swap uid and euid
701 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
704 =item Can't take log of %g
706 (F) Logarithms are defined on only positive real numbers.
708 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
710 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
711 negative number. There's a Complex package available for Perl, though,
712 if you really want to do that.
714 =item Can't undef active subroutine
716 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
717 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
718 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
722 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
723 as the main Perl stack.
725 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
727 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
728 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
729 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
730 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
732 =item Can't upgrade to undef
734 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
735 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
736 code calling sv_upgrade.
738 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
740 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
741 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
742 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
743 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
746 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
748 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
750 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
752 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
753 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
754 test the type of the reference, if need be.
756 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
758 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
759 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
760 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
761 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
762 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
764 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
766 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
767 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
769 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
771 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
772 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
774 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
776 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
777 be a defined value. This helps to de-lurk some insidious errors.
779 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
781 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
782 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
783 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
784 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
787 =item Can't use subscript on %s
789 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
790 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
791 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
793 =item Can't write to temp file for B<-e>: %s
795 (F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
796 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
798 =item Can't x= to read-only value
800 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
801 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
802 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
804 =item Cannot open temporary file
806 (F) The create routine failed for some reason while trying to process
807 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
809 =item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
811 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
812 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
813 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
815 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
817 (W) A novice will sometimes say
821 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
822 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
824 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
826 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
828 =item connect() on closed fd
830 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
831 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
833 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
835 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
836 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
839 =item Copy method did not return a reference
841 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
843 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
845 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
847 =item corrupted regexp pointers
849 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
850 expression compiler gave it.
852 =item corrupted regexp program
854 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
855 a valid magic number.
857 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
859 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
860 times than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
861 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
862 case it indicates something else.
864 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
866 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
868 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
870 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
871 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
875 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
876 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
878 =item Do you need to pre-declare %s?
880 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
881 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
882 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
883 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
884 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
885 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
886 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
887 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
890 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
892 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
894 =item do_study: out of memory
896 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
898 =item Duplicate free() ignored
900 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
903 =item elseif should be elsif
905 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
906 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
907 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
908 unlikely to be what you want.
910 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
912 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
913 The interpreter is immediately exited.
915 =item Error converting file specification %s
917 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
918 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
919 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
920 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
921 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
923 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
925 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
927 =item Exiting eval via %s
929 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
930 a goto, or a loop control statement.
932 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
934 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
935 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
936 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
938 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
940 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
941 a goto, or a loop control statement.
943 =item Exiting substitution via %s
945 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
946 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
948 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
950 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
951 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
952 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
953 the Perl source code is distressed.
955 =item fcntl is not implemented
957 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
960 =item Filehandle %s never opened
962 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
963 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
964 the FileHandle package.
966 =item Filehandle %s opened for only input
968 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
969 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
970 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
971 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
974 =item Filehandle opened for only input
976 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
977 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
978 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
979 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
982 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
984 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
985 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
986 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
989 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
991 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
992 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
993 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
996 =item Format %s redefined
998 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1002 eval "format NAME =...";
1005 =item Format not terminated
1007 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1008 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1010 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1020 (or something like that).
1022 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1024 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1026 =item gethostent not implemented
1028 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1029 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1032 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1034 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1035 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1037 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1039 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1040 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1043 =item Glob not terminated
1045 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1046 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1047 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1048 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1050 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1052 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables must
1053 either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1054 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1056 =item goto must have label
1058 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1059 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1061 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1063 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1064 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1065 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1067 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1069 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1070 is now heavily deprecated.
1072 =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
1074 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
1075 to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
1076 names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
1077 appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
1078 might directly modify logical name tables and introduce non-standard names,
1079 or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
1081 =item Illegal division by zero
1083 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1084 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1086 =item Illegal modulus zero
1088 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1089 don't take to this kindly.
1091 =item Illegal octal digit
1093 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1095 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
1097 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1098 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1100 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1102 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1103 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1104 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1105 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1106 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1107 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1108 for more information.
1110 =item Insecure directory in %s
1112 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1113 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1118 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1119 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> is derived from data supplied (or
1120 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1121 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1123 =item Integer overflow in hex number
1125 (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
1126 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
1129 =item Integer overflow in octal number
1131 (S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
1132 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
1135 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1137 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1138 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1139 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1140 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
1141 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1142 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1143 and execute the specified command.
1145 =item internal disaster in regexp
1147 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1149 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1151 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1153 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1155 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1156 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1158 =item ioctl is not implemented
1160 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1161 strange for a machine that supports C.
1163 =item junk on end of regexp
1165 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1167 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1169 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1170 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1171 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1173 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1175 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1176 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1179 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1181 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1182 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1185 =item listen() on closed fd
1187 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1188 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1190 =item Literal @%s now requires backslash
1192 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1193 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was
1194 first used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and
1195 ambiguous instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by putting a
1196 backslash to indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array
1197 within the program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply
1198 assume that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1200 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1202 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1203 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1205 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1207 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1208 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1209 ended earlier on the current line.
1211 =item Misplaced _ in number
1213 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1215 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1217 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1218 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1219 one line to the next.
1221 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1223 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1224 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1226 =item Missing operator before %s?
1228 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1229 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1231 =item Missing right bracket
1233 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1234 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1237 =item Missing semicolon on previous line?
1239 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1240 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1241 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1243 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1245 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1246 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1247 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1249 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1252 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1254 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1256 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1257 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1260 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1262 (F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1263 be created for some peculiar reason.
1265 =item Module name must be constant
1267 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1269 =item msg%s not implemented
1271 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1273 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1275 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1276 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1278 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1280 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names. If you
1281 had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1282 again somehow to suppress the message (the C<use vars> pragma is
1283 provided for just this purpose).
1285 =item Negative length
1287 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1288 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1290 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1292 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1293 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1295 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1296 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1300 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1301 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1303 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1305 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1306 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1307 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1310 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1312 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1314 =item No comma allowed after %s
1316 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1317 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1318 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1320 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1321 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1322 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1323 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1324 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1325 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1326 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1327 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1328 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1329 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1330 this error was triggered?
1332 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1334 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1335 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither you
1336 want to pipe the output from this command.
1338 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1340 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1341 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1342 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1343 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1344 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1347 =item No dbm on this machine
1349 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1350 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1352 =item No DBsub routine
1354 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1355 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1356 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1357 ordinary subroutine call.
1359 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1361 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1362 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1363 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1365 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1367 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1368 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1369 from which to read data for stdin.
1371 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1373 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1374 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1375 whither you wanted to redirect stdout.
1377 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1379 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1380 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1381 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1383 =item No Perl script found in input
1385 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1386 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1388 =item No setregid available
1390 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1393 =item No setreuid available
1395 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1398 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1400 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1403 =item No such pipe open
1405 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1406 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1407 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1409 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1411 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1412 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1414 =item Not a CODE reference
1416 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1417 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1418 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1419 See also L<perlref>.
1421 =item Not a format reference
1423 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1424 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1426 =item Not a GLOB reference
1428 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1429 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1430 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1431 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1433 =item Not a HASH reference
1435 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1436 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1437 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1439 =item Not a perl script
1441 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1442 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1445 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1447 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1448 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1449 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1451 =item Not a subroutine reference
1453 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1454 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1455 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1456 See also L<perlref>.
1458 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1460 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1461 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1463 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1465 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1466 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1467 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1469 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1471 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1473 =item Not enough format arguments
1475 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1478 =item Null filename used
1480 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1481 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1483 =item Null picture in formline
1485 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1486 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1487 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1489 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1491 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1495 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1497 =item NULL regexp argument
1499 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1501 =item NULL regexp parameter
1503 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1505 =item Odd number of elements in hash list
1507 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash list, which is odd,
1508 because hash lists come in key/value pairs.
1510 =item Offset outside string
1512 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1513 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1514 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1515 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1519 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1523 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1525 =item Operation `%s': no method found,%s
1527 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1528 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1529 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1530 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1531 true. See L<overload>.
1533 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1535 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1536 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1537 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1538 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1539 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1541 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1543 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1544 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1546 =item Out of memory!
1548 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1549 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1551 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1552 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1553 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1554 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
1555 error is trappable I<once>.
1557 =item Out of memory during request for %s
1559 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1560 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1561 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1562 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1566 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1569 =item panic: ck_grep
1571 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1573 =item panic: ck_split
1575 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1577 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1579 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1580 are in the savestack.
1584 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1585 it wasn't an eval context.
1587 =item panic: do_match
1589 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1591 =item panic: do_split
1593 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1595 =item panic: do_subst
1597 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1599 =item panic: do_trans
1601 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1605 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1606 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1608 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1610 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1612 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1614 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1618 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1619 it wasn't a block context.
1621 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1623 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
1625 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1627 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1628 invalid enum on the top of it.
1632 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1634 =item panic: mapstart
1636 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1638 =item panic: null array
1640 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1642 =item panic: pad_alloc
1644 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1645 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1647 =item panic: pad_free curpad
1649 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1650 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1652 =item panic: pad_free po
1654 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1656 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
1658 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1659 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1661 =item panic: pad_sv po
1663 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1665 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1667 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1668 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1670 =item panic: pad_swipe po
1672 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1674 =item panic: pp_iter
1676 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1678 =item panic: realloc
1680 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1682 =item panic: restartop
1684 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1685 didn't supply the destination.
1689 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1690 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
1692 =item panic: scan_num
1694 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
1696 =item panic: sv_insert
1698 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
1701 =item panic: top_env
1703 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
1707 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
1709 =item Pareneses missing around "%s" list
1711 (W) You said something like
1717 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
1719 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
1721 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
1723 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
1724 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
1725 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
1727 =item Permission denied
1729 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
1731 =item pid %d not a child
1733 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
1734 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
1735 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
1737 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
1739 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
1740 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
1742 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
1744 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
1745 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
1746 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
1747 exclamation marks parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1750 You probably wrote something like this:
1757 when you should have written this:
1764 If you really want comments, build your list the
1765 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
1769 'b', # another comment
1772 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
1774 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
1775 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
1776 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1779 You probably wrote something like this:
1783 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
1784 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
1788 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
1790 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
1791 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
1792 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
1793 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
1795 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
1797 (S) The old irregular construct
1801 is now misinterpreted as
1805 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
1806 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
1807 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead of "||".
1809 =item print on closed filehandle %s
1811 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
1812 Check your logic flow.
1814 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
1816 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1817 Check your logic flow.
1819 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
1821 (W) The compiler found a bare word where it expected a conditional,
1822 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
1823 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
1827 =item Prototype mismatch: (%s) vs (%s)
1829 (S) The subroutine being defined had a pre-declared (forward) declaration
1830 with a different function prototype.
1832 =item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
1834 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
1835 Check your logic flow.
1837 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
1839 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
1841 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
1843 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
1844 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
1845 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
1847 =item Recursive inheritance detected
1849 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
1850 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
1852 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
1854 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
1855 reference count of other than 1.
1857 =item regexp memory corruption
1859 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1860 expression compiler gave it.
1862 =item regexp out of space
1864 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
1866 =item regexp too big
1868 (F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
1869 address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
1870 the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
1871 Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
1872 way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
1874 =item Reversed %s= operator
1876 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
1877 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
1879 =item Runaway format
1881 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
1882 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
1883 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
1884 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
1885 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
1887 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
1889 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
1890 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1891 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
1892 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
1893 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1894 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
1896 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
1897 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
1898 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1901 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
1903 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
1904 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1905 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
1906 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
1907 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1908 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
1910 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
1911 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
1912 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1915 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
1917 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script with its setuid
1918 or setgid bit not set. This doesn't make much sense.
1920 =item Search pattern not terminated
1922 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
1923 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1925 =item seek() on unopened file
1927 (W) You tried to use the seek() function on a filehandle that was either
1928 never opened or has been closed since.
1930 =item select not implemented
1932 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
1934 =item sem%s not implemented
1936 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
1938 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
1940 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
1941 that had previously been marked as free.
1943 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
1945 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
1946 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
1948 =item Send on closed socket
1950 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
1951 Check your logic flow.
1953 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
1955 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
1956 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
1958 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
1960 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
1961 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
1963 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
1965 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
1970 Also known as "500 Server error". This is a CGI error, not a Perl
1971 error. You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible
1972 by the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not
1973 the user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
1974 variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
1975 in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
1977 =item setegid() not implemented
1979 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
1980 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1983 =item seteuid() not implemented
1985 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
1986 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1989 =item setrgid() not implemented
1991 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
1992 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1995 =item setruid() not implemented
1997 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
1998 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2001 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2003 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2004 because the world might have written on it already.
2006 =item shm%s not implemented
2008 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2010 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2012 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2014 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined.
2016 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2017 put it into the wrong package?
2019 =item sort is now a reserved word
2021 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2022 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2024 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2026 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2027 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2028 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2030 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2032 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2033 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2037 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2038 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2039 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2041 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2043 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2044 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has been closed since.
2046 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2048 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2049 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2050 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2051 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2054 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2056 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2057 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2060 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2062 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2066 eval "sub name { ... }";
2069 =item Substitution loop
2071 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2072 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2073 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2074 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2076 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2078 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2079 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2081 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2083 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2084 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2086 =item substr outside of string
2088 (W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a string.
2089 That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the length of
2090 the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
2092 =item suidperl is no longer needed since...
2094 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2095 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2099 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2101 A keyword is misspelled.
2102 A semicolon is missing.
2104 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2105 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2106 A closing quote is missing.
2108 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2109 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2110 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2111 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2112 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2113 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2114 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2115 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2116 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2118 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2120 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2121 instead of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
2124 =item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
2126 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm",
2127 or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
2129 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2131 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2132 Check your logic flow.
2134 =item tell() on unopened file
2136 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2137 never opened or has been closed since.
2139 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2141 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2142 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2144 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2146 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2147 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2156 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2157 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2159 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2161 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2162 to the probings of Configure.
2164 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
2166 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2167 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2168 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2169 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2172 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2174 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2175 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2176 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2178 =item times not implemented
2180 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2181 you're not running on Unix.
2183 =item Too few args to syscall
2185 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2186 system call to call, silly dilly.
2192 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2193 of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
2196 =item Too many args to syscall
2198 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2200 =item Too many arguments for %s
2202 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2204 =item trailing \ in regexp
2206 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2209 =item Translation pattern not terminated
2211 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2214 =item Translation replacement not terminated
2216 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2219 =item truncate not implemented
2221 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2222 Configure knows about.
2224 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2226 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2227 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2228 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2229 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2231 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2233 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal literals
2234 always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2236 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2238 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2240 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2242 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2243 contexts were entered and left.
2245 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2247 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2248 values were temporarily localized.
2250 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2252 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2253 were entered and left.
2255 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2257 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2258 scalars were allocated and freed.
2260 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2262 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2263 another package? See L<perlform>.
2265 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2267 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2268 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2270 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2272 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2273 has since been undefined.
2275 =item Undefined subroutine called
2277 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2278 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2280 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2282 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2283 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2285 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2287 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2288 another package? See L<perlform>.
2290 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2292 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2293 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2295 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2297 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2299 =item unmatched () in regexp
2301 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2302 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2303 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2305 =item Unmatched right bracket
2307 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2308 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2309 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2312 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2314 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2315 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2318 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2320 (W) You used a bare word that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2321 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2322 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2324 =item Unrecognized character \%03o ignored
2326 (S) A garbage character was found in the input, and ignored, in case it's
2327 a weird control character on an EBCDIC machine, or some such.
2329 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2331 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2332 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2334 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s
2336 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2337 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2338 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2340 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2342 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2343 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2344 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chop>.
2346 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2348 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2350 =item Unsupported function %s
2352 (F) This machines doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2353 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2355 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2357 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2358 least that's what Configure thought.
2360 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
2362 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2363 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2364 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2365 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2367 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2369 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
2370 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2372 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2374 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
2375 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2376 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2377 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2379 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2381 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2382 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2384 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2386 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2387 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2390 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
2392 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2393 wish to use a blank line as the terminator of the here-document.
2395 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2397 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2398 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2399 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2401 =item Use of uninitialized value
2403 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2404 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2405 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2407 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2409 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2410 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2411 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2412 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2413 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2414 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2418 when you meant to say
2420 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2422 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2423 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2428 when you should have said
2432 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2433 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2434 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2435 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2436 L<perlref> for more on this.
2438 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
2440 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
2441 valid when C<untie> was called.
2443 =item Value of %s construct can be "0"; test with defined()
2445 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), or
2446 C<readdir> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
2447 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which
2448 is probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in
2449 conditional expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
2451 =item Variable "%s" is not exported
2453 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2454 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2455 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2456 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2457 on the front of your variable.
2459 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
2461 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
2462 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
2463 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
2464 the outermost subroutine. For example:
2466 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
2468 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
2469 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
2470 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
2471 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
2472 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
2473 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
2476 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
2477 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
2478 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
2479 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
2481 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
2483 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
2484 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
2486 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
2487 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
2488 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
2489 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
2490 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
2491 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
2493 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
2494 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
2495 will I<never> share the given variable.
2497 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
2498 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
2499 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
2500 they are automatically re-bound to the current values of such
2503 =item Variable syntax.
2505 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2506 of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
2509 =item Warning: something's wrong
2511 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
2512 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
2514 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly.
2516 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
2517 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
2519 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
2521 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2522 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2523 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2524 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2528 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
2532 but in actual fact, you got
2536 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
2538 =item Write on closed filehandle
2540 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2541 Check your logic flow.
2543 =item X outside of string
2545 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
2546 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2548 =item x outside of string
2550 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
2551 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2553 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
2555 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2557 =item Xsub called in sort
2559 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2561 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
2563 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
2564 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
2565 Use a filename instead.
2567 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
2569 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
2570 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
2571 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
2572 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
2574 =item You need to quote "%s"
2576 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
2577 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
2578 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
2579 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
2581 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
2583 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
2584 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2585 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2587 =item \1 better written as $1
2589 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
2590 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
2591 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
2592 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
2593 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
2595 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
2597 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2598 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
2599 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
2601 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
2603 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2604 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
2605 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
2606 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
2609 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
2616 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2618 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2619 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2621 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2623 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2631 with non-empty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2632 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may appear
2633 if components are not found, or are too long. See L<perlos2/"PERLLIB_PREFIX">.
2635 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2637 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2638 C<sh>-shell in. See L<perlos2/"PERL_SH_DIR">.
2640 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2642 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2643 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2644 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2645 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See L<perlos2/"Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT">.