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 (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above (W,
19 D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
39 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
40 Since the messages are listed in alphabetical order, the symbols
41 C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
45 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
47 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
48 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
49 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
50 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
53 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
55 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try that
58 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
60 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
61 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
62 if you want to localize a package variable.
64 =item "no" not allowed in expression
66 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
67 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
69 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
71 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before in the
72 current lexical scope.
74 =item "use" not allowed in expression
76 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
77 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
79 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
81 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
84 =item / cannot take a count
86 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
87 but you have also specified an explicit size for the string.
90 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
92 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
93 which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z
94 to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked.
97 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
99 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
100 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*.
101 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
103 =item / must follow a numeric type
105 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#',
106 but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.
107 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
109 =item % may only be used in unpack
111 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
112 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
113 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
115 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
117 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
118 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
120 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
122 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
123 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
125 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
127 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
128 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
129 C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood literally.
131 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
133 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
134 by Perl inside character classes. The character was understood literally.
136 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
138 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
139 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true
140 or false result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string,
141 which is probably not what you had in mind.
143 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
145 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
146 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
147 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
149 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
151 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a
152 definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call
153 conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype
154 declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine
155 definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively,
156 if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put
157 an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L<perlsub>.
159 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
161 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
164 $ref->[12]->["susie"]
166 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
168 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element, such as:
171 $ref->[12]->["susie"]
173 or a hash or array slice, such as:
175 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
176 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
178 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
180 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
181 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
183 =item %s did not return a true value
185 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
186 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
187 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
188 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
190 =item %s found where operator expected
192 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
193 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
194 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
195 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
197 =item %s had compilation errors
199 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
201 =item %s has too many errors
203 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
204 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
206 =item %s matches null string many times
208 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
209 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
211 =item %s never introduced
213 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
214 before it could possibly have been used.
216 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
218 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a package-specific handler.
219 That name might have a meaning to Perl itself some day, even though it
220 doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a mixed-case attribute name, instead.
225 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
227 =item %s: Command not found
229 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
230 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
233 =item %s: Expression syntax
235 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
236 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
239 =item %s: Undefined variable
241 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
242 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
247 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
248 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
251 =item (in cleanup) %s
253 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
254 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
255 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
256 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
257 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
260 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
261 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
263 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
265 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
266 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
267 the previous line just because you saw this message.
269 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
271 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
272 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
274 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
276 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
277 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
279 =item C<-p> destination: %s
281 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
282 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
283 redirected it with select().)
285 =item 500 Server error
289 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
291 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
292 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
294 =item @ outside of string
296 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
297 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
299 =item <> should be quotes
301 (F) You wrote C<require E<lt>fileE<gt>> when you should have written
304 =item accept() on closed socket %s
306 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
307 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
309 =item Allocation too large: %lx
311 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
313 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
315 (W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
316 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
317 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
318 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
319 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
320 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
322 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
324 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
326 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
328 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
329 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
330 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
332 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
334 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
335 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
336 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
339 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
340 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
341 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
342 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
344 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
345 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
346 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">
349 =item Args must match #! line
351 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
352 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
353 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
354 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
356 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
358 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
359 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
360 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
362 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
364 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
365 is now heavily deprecated.
367 =item assertion botched: %s
369 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
371 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
373 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
375 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
377 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
378 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
379 know which context to supply to the right side.
381 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
383 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
384 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
387 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
389 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
390 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
391 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
392 that can no longer be found in the table.
394 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
396 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
397 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
398 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
399 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
402 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
404 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
406 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
408 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
409 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
410 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
411 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
412 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
413 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
415 =item Attempt to join self
417 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
418 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
419 need to move the join() to some other thread.
421 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
423 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
424 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
425 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
426 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
427 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
430 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
432 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
433 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
434 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
436 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
438 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
439 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
440 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
441 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
443 =item Bad filehandle: %s
445 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
446 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
447 did it in another package.
449 =item Bad free() ignored
451 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
452 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
453 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
455 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
456 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
457 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
462 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
464 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
466 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
467 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
470 =item Bad name after %s::
472 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
473 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
482 $sym = "mypack::$var";
484 =item Bad realloc() ignored
486 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had never been
487 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
488 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
490 =item Bad symbol for array
492 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
493 wasn't a symbol table entry.
495 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
497 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
498 wasn't a symbol table entry.
500 =item Bad symbol for hash
502 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
503 wasn't a symbol table entry.
505 =item Badly placed ()'s
507 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
508 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
511 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
513 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
514 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
515 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
517 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
519 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
520 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
521 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
523 =item Bareword found in conditional
525 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
526 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
527 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
531 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted
534 use constant TYPO => 1;
535 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
537 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
539 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
541 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
542 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
544 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
546 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
547 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
548 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
549 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
550 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
552 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
554 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
555 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
556 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
558 =item bind() on closed socket %s
560 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
561 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
563 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
565 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
567 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
569 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
571 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
573 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
574 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
575 so it was truncated to the string shown.
577 =item Callback called exit
579 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
580 exited by calling exit.
582 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
584 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
585 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
586 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
587 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
589 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
591 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
592 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
594 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
596 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
597 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
598 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
599 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep().
600 You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect though,
601 because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once.
602 See L<perlfunc/last>.
604 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
606 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
607 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
608 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
609 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
610 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
611 loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
613 =item Can't read CRTL environ
615 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
616 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
617 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
618 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
620 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
622 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
623 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
624 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
625 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
626 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
627 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
629 =item Can't bless non-reference value
631 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
632 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
634 =item Can't break at that line
636 (S internal) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
637 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
640 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
642 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
643 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
644 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
646 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
648 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
649 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
650 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
651 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
653 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
655 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
656 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
657 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
658 Something like this will reproduce the error:
661 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
662 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
664 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
666 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
667 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
668 Something like this will reproduce the error:
671 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
672 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
674 =item Can't chdir to %s
676 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
677 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
679 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
681 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
683 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
685 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
686 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
696 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
698 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
700 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
701 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
703 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
705 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
706 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
708 =item Can't coerce array into hash
710 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
711 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
712 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
714 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
716 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
717 or other plumbing problems.
719 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
721 (S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
722 qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
723 for other types of variables in future.
725 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
727 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
728 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
730 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
732 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
734 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
736 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
737 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
740 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
742 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
743 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
744 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
746 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
748 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
749 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
751 =item Can't do setegid!
753 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
756 =item Can't do seteuid!
758 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
760 =item Can't do setuid
762 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
763 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
764 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
765 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
766 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
767 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
769 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
771 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
772 without flags is emulated.
774 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
776 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
777 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
779 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
781 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
782 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
784 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
786 (W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
787 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
788 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
789 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
790 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
791 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
795 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
796 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
797 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
799 =item Can't execute %s
801 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
802 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
804 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
806 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
807 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
808 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
810 =item Can't find %s on PATH
812 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
815 =item Can't find label %s
817 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
818 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
820 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
822 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
823 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
824 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
826 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
828 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
829 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
830 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
834 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
836 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
838 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
839 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
840 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
841 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
842 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
843 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
844 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
845 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
846 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
847 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
848 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
849 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
850 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
851 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
853 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
855 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
856 can't retrieve its name for later use.
858 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
860 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
861 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
863 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
865 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
866 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
867 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
870 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
872 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
873 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
875 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
877 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD signal
878 (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this signal
879 will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
880 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value.
881 This situation typically indicates that the parent program under
882 which Perl may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
884 =item Can't localize through a reference
886 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
887 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
888 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
889 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
891 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
893 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
894 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
895 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
898 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
900 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
901 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
902 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
903 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
905 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
907 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
908 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
909 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
910 doing C<make install>.
912 =item Can't locate %s
914 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
915 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
916 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
917 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra
918 library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or
919 maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>
922 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
924 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
925 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
926 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
928 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
930 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
933 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
935 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
937 =item Can't modify %s in %s
939 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
940 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
942 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
944 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
945 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
947 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
949 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
952 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
954 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
957 =item Can't open %s: %s
959 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
960 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
961 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
962 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
965 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
967 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
968 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
969 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
970 and then read it in under a different file handle.
972 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
974 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
975 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
976 command line for writing.
978 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
980 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
981 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
983 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
985 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
986 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
989 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
991 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
992 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
994 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
996 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
998 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
1000 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
1001 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
1002 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
1003 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
1005 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1007 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup file. Perl
1008 was unable to remove the original file to replace it with the modified
1009 file. The file was left unmodified.
1011 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1013 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1014 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1016 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1018 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
1019 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1021 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
1023 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
1026 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1028 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1029 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1031 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1033 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such
1034 as temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue.
1035 This is not allowed.
1037 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1039 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
1040 it open already. Bizarre.
1042 =item Can't swap uid and euid
1044 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
1047 =item Can't take log of %g
1049 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1050 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1051 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
1052 the negative numbers.
1054 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1056 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1057 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1058 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1060 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1062 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1063 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1064 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1068 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1069 as the main Perl stack.
1071 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
1073 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
1074 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
1075 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
1076 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1078 =item Can't upgrade to undef
1080 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
1081 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
1082 code calling sv_upgrade.
1084 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
1086 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1087 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1088 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1090 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1092 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1093 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
1094 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1095 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1098 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
1100 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
1101 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
1102 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
1104 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1106 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
1108 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1110 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1111 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1112 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1114 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1116 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
1117 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
1118 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
1119 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
1120 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
1122 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1124 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1125 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1127 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1129 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1130 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1132 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1134 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1135 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1137 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1139 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
1140 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
1141 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
1142 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1145 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1147 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1148 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1149 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1151 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1153 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1154 references can be weakened.
1156 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1158 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
1159 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1160 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1162 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
1164 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
1165 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
1167 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1169 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1170 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1171 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1173 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1175 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
1178 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1180 (W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1181 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
1182 for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .]
1183 are not currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for
1186 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1188 (W regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
1189 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
1190 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1191 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1192 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1194 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1196 (W regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1197 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
1198 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1199 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1200 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1202 =item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
1204 (W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
1206 chmod 777, $filename
1208 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1209 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1211 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1213 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1215 =item Compilation failed in require
1217 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1218 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1219 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1221 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1223 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1224 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1225 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1226 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1227 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1228 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1229 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1230 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1231 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1233 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1235 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1236 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1238 =item Constant is not %s reference
1240 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1241 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1242 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1243 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1244 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1246 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1248 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1249 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1252 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1254 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1255 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1258 =item constant(%s): %%^H is not localized
1260 (F) When setting compile-time-lexicalized hash %^H one should set the
1261 corresponding bit of $^H as well.
1263 =item constant(%s): %s
1265 (F) Compile-time-substitutions (such as overloaded constants and
1266 character names) were not correctly set up.
1268 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1270 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1272 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1274 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1276 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1278 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1279 expression compiler gave it.
1281 =item corrupted regexp program
1283 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1284 a valid magic number.
1286 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1288 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1289 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1290 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1291 case it indicates something else.
1293 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1295 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
1296 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
1297 just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1299 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1301 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
1302 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
1303 just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1305 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1307 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1308 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1309 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1311 =item Did not produce a valid header
1315 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1317 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1319 =item Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?
1321 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global variable.
1322 You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which seems superfluous.
1324 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1326 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1327 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1331 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1332 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1334 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1336 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1337 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1338 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1339 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1340 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1341 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1342 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1343 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1346 =item Document contains no data
1350 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1352 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1354 =item do_study: out of memory
1356 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1358 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1360 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1363 =item elseif should be elsif
1365 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1366 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1367 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1368 unlikely to be what you want.
1370 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1372 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1373 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1374 routines has been prematurely ended.
1376 =item entering effective %s failed
1378 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1379 effective uids or gids failed.
1381 =item Error converting file specification %s
1383 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1384 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1385 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1386 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1387 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1389 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1391 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1392 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1393 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1395 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1397 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1398 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1399 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1401 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1403 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1404 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1405 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1406 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1407 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1408 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1410 =item Excessively long <> operator
1412 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1413 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1414 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1415 variable and glob that.
1417 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1419 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1421 =item Exiting eval via %s
1423 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1424 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1426 =item Exiting format via %s
1428 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1429 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1431 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1433 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1434 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1435 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1437 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1439 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1440 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1442 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1444 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1445 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1447 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1449 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1450 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1451 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1452 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1454 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1456 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal character, not
1457 another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-" in your false
1458 range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the "-", "\-".
1461 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1463 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1464 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1465 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1466 the Perl source code is distressed.
1468 =item fcntl is not implemented
1470 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1471 PDP-11 or something?
1473 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1475 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1476 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1477 the FileHandle package.
1479 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1481 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1482 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1483 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1484 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1487 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1489 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
1490 intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1491 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1492 you intended only to read from the file, use "E<lt>". See
1495 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1497 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1498 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1499 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1502 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1504 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1505 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1506 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1509 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1511 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed some
1512 time before now. Check your logic flow. flock() operates on filehandles.
1513 Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the same name?
1515 =item Format %s redefined
1517 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1521 eval "format NAME =...";
1524 =item Format not terminated
1526 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1527 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1529 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1539 (or something like that).
1541 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1543 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1545 =item gethostent not implemented
1547 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1548 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1551 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1553 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1554 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1556 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1558 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1559 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1561 =item glob failed (%s)
1563 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1564 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1565 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1566 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1567 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1568 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1569 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1570 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1571 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1572 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1575 =item Glob not terminated
1577 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1578 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1579 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1580 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1582 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1584 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1585 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1586 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1589 =item goto must have label
1591 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1592 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1594 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1596 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1597 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1598 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1600 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1602 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1603 is now heavily deprecated.
1605 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1607 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1608 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1609 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1611 =item Identifier too long
1613 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1614 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1615 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1616 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1618 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1620 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1621 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1622 used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1624 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1626 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1627 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1628 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1631 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1633 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1634 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this
1635 error when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason,
1636 your version of Perl appears to have been built without this support.
1637 Talk to your Perl administrator.
1639 =item Illegal division by zero
1641 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1642 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1644 =item Illegal modulus zero
1646 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1647 don't take to this kindly.
1649 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1651 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1653 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1655 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1657 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1659 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1660 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1662 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1664 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1665 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1667 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1669 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f
1670 in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1671 before the illegal character.
1673 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1675 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1676 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1678 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1680 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1681 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1683 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1685 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1686 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1687 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1688 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1689 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1690 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1691 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1693 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1695 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1696 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1697 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1698 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1699 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1700 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1701 for more information.
1703 =item Insecure directory in %s
1705 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1706 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1709 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1711 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1712 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1713 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1714 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1715 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1717 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1719 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either
1720 as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for your
1721 architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a
1722 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1723 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1724 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1725 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1726 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1729 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1731 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1732 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1733 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1734 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1735 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1736 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1737 and execute the specified command.
1739 =item internal disaster in regexp
1741 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1743 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1745 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1747 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1749 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1750 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1752 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1754 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not recognized
1755 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1757 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1759 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1760 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1762 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1764 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1765 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1767 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1769 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1770 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute
1771 had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated
1772 too soon. See L<attributes>.
1774 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1776 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1777 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1780 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1782 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1783 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1786 =item ioctl is not implemented
1788 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1789 strange for a machine that supports C.
1791 =item junk on end of regexp
1793 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1795 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1797 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1798 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1799 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1801 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1803 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1804 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1807 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1809 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1810 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1813 =item leaving effective %s failed
1815 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1816 effective uids or gids failed.
1818 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1820 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1821 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1823 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1825 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1826 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context.
1827 See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1829 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1831 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1832 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1834 =item Method %s not permitted
1838 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1840 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1841 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1842 ended earlier on the current line.
1844 =item Misplaced _ in number
1846 (W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1848 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1850 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1851 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1852 one line to the next.
1854 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1856 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1857 double-quotish context.
1859 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1861 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1862 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1864 =item Missing command in piped open
1866 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1867 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1869 =item Missing operator before %s?
1871 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1872 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1874 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1876 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than
1877 closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place
1878 you were last editing.
1880 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1882 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1883 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1884 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1886 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1889 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1891 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1893 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1894 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1897 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1899 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1900 be created for some peculiar reason.
1902 =item Module name must be constant
1904 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1906 =item msg%s not implemented
1908 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1910 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1912 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1913 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1915 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1917 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that they
1918 have a name with which they can be found.
1920 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1922 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1923 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1924 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1925 provided for this purpose.
1927 =item Negative length
1929 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1930 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1932 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1934 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1935 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1937 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1938 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1942 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1943 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1945 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1947 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1948 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1949 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1952 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1954 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1956 =item No %s specified for -%c
1958 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
1959 you haven't specified one.
1961 =item No comma allowed after %s
1963 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1964 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1965 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1967 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1968 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1969 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1970 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1971 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1972 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1973 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1974 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1975 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1976 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1977 this error was triggered?
1979 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1981 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1982 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1983 want to pipe the output from this command.
1985 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1987 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1988 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1989 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1990 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1991 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1994 =item No dbm on this machine
1996 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1997 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1999 =item No DBsub routine
2001 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2002 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2003 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2004 ordinary subroutine call.
2006 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
2008 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
2009 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
2010 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2012 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
2014 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
2015 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
2016 from which to read data for stdin.
2018 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
2020 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
2021 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
2022 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2024 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
2026 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
2027 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
2028 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2030 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2032 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our" declarations,
2033 because that doesn't make much sense under existing semantics. Such
2034 syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2036 =item No Perl script found in input
2038 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2039 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2041 =item No setregid available
2043 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2046 =item No setreuid available
2048 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2051 =item No space allowed after -%c
2053 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow immediately
2054 after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2056 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2058 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2059 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2060 array indices for that to work.
2062 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2064 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
2065 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
2066 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
2067 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2069 =item No such pipe open
2071 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2072 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
2073 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2075 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2077 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
2078 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2080 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2082 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2083 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2084 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
2085 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
2088 =item Not a CODE reference
2090 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2091 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2092 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2093 See also L<perlref>.
2095 =item Not a format reference
2097 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2098 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2100 =item Not a GLOB reference
2102 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
2103 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2104 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
2105 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2107 =item Not a HASH reference
2109 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
2110 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2111 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2113 =item Not a perl script
2115 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2116 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2119 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2121 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
2122 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2123 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2125 =item Not a subroutine reference
2127 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2128 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2129 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2130 See also L<perlref>.
2132 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2134 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2135 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2137 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2139 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
2140 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2141 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2143 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2145 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2147 =item Not enough format arguments
2149 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
2152 =item Null filename used
2154 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
2155 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2157 =item Null picture in formline
2159 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2160 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2161 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2163 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2165 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
2169 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2171 =item NULL regexp argument
2173 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2175 =item NULL regexp parameter
2177 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2179 =item Number too long
2181 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
2182 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
2183 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
2184 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
2186 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2188 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295)
2189 and therefore non-portable between systems. See L<perlport> for more
2190 on portability concerns.
2192 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2194 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2196 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors. The
2197 octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a future
2200 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2202 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
2203 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2205 =item Offset outside string
2207 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2208 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
2209 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
2210 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2214 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2218 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2220 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2222 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
2223 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
2224 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
2225 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
2226 true. See L<overload>.
2228 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2230 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
2231 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
2232 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
2233 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
2234 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
2236 =item Out of memory!
2238 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2239 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl
2240 has no option but to exit immediately.
2242 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2244 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
2245 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
2247 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2249 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2250 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
2252 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2253 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2254 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
2255 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
2256 error is trappable I<once>.
2258 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2260 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2261 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2262 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
2263 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2265 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2267 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2268 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
2269 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2273 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
2276 =item panic: ck_grep
2278 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2280 =item panic: ck_split
2282 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2284 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2286 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
2287 are in the savestack.
2289 =item panic: del_backref
2291 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2296 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2297 it wasn't an eval context.
2299 =item panic: do_match
2301 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2303 =item panic: do_split
2305 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2307 =item panic: do_subst
2309 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2311 =item panic: do_trans
2313 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2317 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2321 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2322 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2324 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2326 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2328 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2330 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2332 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2334 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2338 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2339 it wasn't a block context.
2341 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2343 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
2345 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2347 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2348 invalid enum on the top of it.
2352 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2354 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2356 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2357 references to an object.
2359 =item panic: mapstart
2361 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2363 =item panic: null array
2365 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2367 =item panic: pad_alloc
2369 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2370 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2372 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2374 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2375 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2377 =item panic: pad_free po
2379 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2381 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2383 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2384 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2386 =item panic: pad_sv po
2388 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2390 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2392 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2393 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2395 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2397 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2399 =item panic: pp_iter
2401 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2403 =item panic: realloc
2405 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2407 =item panic: restartop
2409 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2410 didn't supply the destination.
2414 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2415 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2417 =item panic: scan_num
2419 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2421 =item panic: sv_insert
2423 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2426 =item panic: top_env
2428 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2432 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2436 (P) An internal error.
2438 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2440 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2446 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2448 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2450 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2452 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2453 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2454 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2456 =item Permission denied
2458 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2460 =item pid %x not a child
2462 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2463 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2464 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2466 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2468 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2469 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2471 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2473 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2474 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2476 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2478 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2479 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2480 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2481 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2483 You probably wrote something like this:
2490 when you should have written this:
2497 If you really want comments, build your list the
2498 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2502 'b', # another comment
2505 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2507 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2508 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2509 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2512 You probably wrote something like this:
2516 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2517 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2521 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2523 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2524 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2525 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2526 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2528 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2530 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2534 is now misinterpreted as
2538 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2539 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2540 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2543 =item Premature end of script headers
2547 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2549 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2550 Check your logic flow.
2552 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2554 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2555 Check your logic flow.
2557 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2559 (S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2560 or defined with a different function prototype.
2562 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2564 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2565 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2566 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2567 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2569 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2571 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2572 Check your logic flow.
2574 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2576 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had already
2579 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2581 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2583 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2585 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2586 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2587 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2589 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2591 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2592 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2594 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2596 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2597 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2599 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2601 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2602 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2603 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2604 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2606 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2607 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2608 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2609 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2611 =item Reference is already weak
2613 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2614 Doing so has no effect.
2616 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2618 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2619 reference count of other than 1.
2621 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2623 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2624 could match an empty string.
2626 =item regexp memory corruption
2628 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2629 expression compiler gave it.
2631 =item regexp out of space
2633 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2635 =item Reversed %s= operator
2637 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2638 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2640 =item Runaway format
2642 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2643 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2644 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2645 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2646 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2648 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2650 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2651 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2652 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2653 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2654 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2655 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2657 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2658 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2659 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2662 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2664 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2665 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2666 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2667 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2668 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2669 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2671 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2672 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2673 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2676 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2678 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2679 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2681 =item Search pattern not terminated
2683 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2684 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2685 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2687 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2689 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2690 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2692 =item select not implemented
2694 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2696 =item sem%s not implemented
2698 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2700 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2702 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2703 that had previously been marked as free.
2705 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2707 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2708 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2710 =item send() on closed socket %s
2712 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2713 Check your logic flow.
2715 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2717 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2720 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2722 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2723 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2725 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2727 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2728 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2730 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2732 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2737 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
2738 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error
2739 text varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen
2740 variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted",
2741 "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and
2742 "Did not produce a valid header".
2744 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2746 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2747 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2748 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2749 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2750 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2751 for more information:
2753 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2754 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2755 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2756 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2757 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2759 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2761 =item setegid() not implemented
2763 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2764 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2767 =item seteuid() not implemented
2769 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2770 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2773 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
2775 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no arguments,
2776 unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process group ID.
2778 =item setrgid() not implemented
2780 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2781 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2784 =item setruid() not implemented
2786 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2787 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2790 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2792 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2793 because the world might have written on it already.
2795 =item shm%s not implemented
2797 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2799 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
2801 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2803 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2805 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2806 put it into the wrong package?
2808 =item sort is now a reserved word
2810 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2811 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2813 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2815 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2816 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2817 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2819 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2821 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2822 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2826 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2827 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2828 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2830 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2832 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2833 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2835 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2837 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2838 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2839 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2840 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2843 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2845 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2846 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2847 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2848 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2849 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2851 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2853 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2854 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2857 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2859 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2863 eval "sub name { ... }";
2866 =item Substitution loop
2868 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2869 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2870 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2871 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2873 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2875 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2876 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2877 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2879 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2881 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2882 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2883 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2885 =item substr outside of string
2887 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2888 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2889 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2890 fatal if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2891 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2893 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2895 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2896 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2898 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2900 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2901 real and effective uids or gids.
2905 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2907 A keyword is misspelled.
2908 A semicolon is missing.
2910 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2911 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2912 A closing quote is missing.
2914 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2915 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2916 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2917 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2918 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2919 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2920 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2921 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2922 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2924 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2926 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2927 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2930 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2932 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2933 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2934 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2935 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2937 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
2939 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2940 Check your logic flow.
2942 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2944 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2945 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2947 =item tell() on unopened file
2949 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2950 never opened or has since been closed.
2952 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2954 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2955 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2957 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2959 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2960 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2969 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2970 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2972 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2974 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2975 to the probings of Configure.
2977 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2979 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2980 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2981 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2982 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2985 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2987 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2988 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2989 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2991 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
2993 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2995 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2996 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2997 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2998 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2999 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
3000 %ENV which produced the warning.
3002 =item times not implemented
3004 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
3005 you're not running on Unix.
3007 =item Too few args to syscall
3009 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3010 system call to call, silly dilly.
3012 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3014 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3015 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3016 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3017 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3020 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3021 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
3022 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
3023 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3025 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3026 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3028 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3030 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3031 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3032 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3038 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3039 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3042 =item Too many args to syscall
3044 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3046 =item Too many arguments for %s
3048 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3050 =item trailing \ in regexp
3052 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
3055 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3057 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3058 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3059 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3061 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3063 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3066 =item truncate not implemented
3068 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3069 Configure knows about.
3071 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3073 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3074 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3075 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3076 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3078 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3080 (W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3081 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3083 =item umask not implemented
3085 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
3086 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3088 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3090 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3092 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3094 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
3095 contexts were entered and left.
3097 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3099 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
3100 values were temporarily localized.
3102 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3104 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
3105 were entered and left.
3107 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3109 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
3110 scalars were allocated and freed.
3112 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3114 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3115 another package? See L<perlform>.
3117 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3119 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
3120 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3122 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3124 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
3125 has since been undefined.
3127 =item Undefined subroutine called
3129 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3130 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3132 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3134 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
3135 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3137 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3139 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3140 another package? See L<perlform>.
3142 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3144 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
3145 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
3147 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3149 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3150 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3152 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3154 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
3156 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3158 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3159 of valid modes: C<E<lt>>, C<E<gt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<+E<lt>>,
3160 C<+E<gt>>, C<+E<gt>E<gt>>, C<-|>, C<|E<45>>.
3162 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3164 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3165 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3166 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3167 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3169 =item unmatched () in regexp
3171 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3172 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
3173 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3175 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3177 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than
3178 opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket.
3179 As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the
3180 place you were last editing.
3182 =item unmatched [] in regexp
3184 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3185 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
3188 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3190 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
3191 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
3192 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
3194 =item Unrecognized character %s
3196 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3197 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3198 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3200 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3202 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
3205 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3207 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
3208 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
3210 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3212 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
3213 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
3214 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
3216 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3218 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
3219 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
3220 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3222 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3224 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3226 =item Unsupported function fork
3228 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3230 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
3231 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
3232 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3234 =item Unsupported function %s
3236 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3237 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3239 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3241 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3242 least that's what Configure thought.
3244 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
3246 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3247 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
3248 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
3249 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3251 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3253 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing an
3254 attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3255 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3256 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3258 =item Unterminated attribute list
3260 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start
3261 of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3262 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute
3263 too soon. See L<attributes>.
3265 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3267 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
3268 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3270 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3272 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
3273 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
3274 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
3275 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3277 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3279 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3280 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3282 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
3284 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
3285 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3287 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3289 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
3290 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
3291 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3293 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3295 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
3296 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
3297 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
3298 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
3300 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
3301 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
3302 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
3303 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
3304 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
3306 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3307 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
3308 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
3309 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
3311 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
3312 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3313 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3315 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3317 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
3318 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
3319 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
3320 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
3321 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
3322 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3324 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3326 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
3327 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
3330 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3332 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
3333 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
3334 warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3336 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3338 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3340 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3342 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
3343 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
3344 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
3345 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
3346 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
3347 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
3351 when you meant to say
3353 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3355 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3356 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3361 when you should have said
3365 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3366 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3367 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3368 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3369 L<perlref> for more on this.
3371 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3373 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
3374 valid when C<untie> was called.
3376 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3378 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
3379 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
3380 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
3381 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
3382 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
3384 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3386 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3387 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3388 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3391 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3393 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
3394 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3395 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
3396 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
3397 on the front of your variable.
3399 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3401 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
3402 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
3403 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
3404 the outermost subroutine. For example:
3406 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3408 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3409 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
3410 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3411 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
3412 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
3413 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
3416 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
3417 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
3418 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
3419 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
3421 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3423 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
3424 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3426 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3427 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3428 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3429 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3430 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3431 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3433 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3434 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3435 will I<never> share the given variable.
3437 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3438 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3439 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3440 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3443 =item Variable syntax
3445 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3446 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3449 =item Version number must be a constant number
3451 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3452 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3455 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3457 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3459 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3460 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3463 are supported and installed on your system.
3464 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3466 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3467 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3468 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3469 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3470 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3471 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3472 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3473 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3474 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3476 =item Warning: something's wrong
3478 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3479 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3481 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3483 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3484 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3486 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3488 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3489 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3490 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3491 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3495 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3499 but in actual fact, you got
3503 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3505 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
3507 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3508 Check your logic flow.
3510 =item X outside of string
3512 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3513 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3515 =item x outside of string
3517 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3518 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3520 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3522 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3524 =item Xsub called in sort
3526 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3528 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3530 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3531 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3532 Use a filename instead.
3534 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3536 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3537 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3538 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3539 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3541 =item You need to quote "%s"
3543 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3544 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3545 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3546 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3548 =item %cetsockopt() on closed socket %s
3550 (W closed) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3551 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3552 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt> and L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3554 =item \1 better written as $1
3556 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3557 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3558 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3559 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3560 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3562 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3564 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3565 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3566 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3568 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3570 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3571 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3572 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3573 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3576 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3583 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3585 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3586 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3588 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3590 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3598 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3599 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3600 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3601 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3603 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3605 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3606 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3608 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3610 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3611 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3612 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3613 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"