3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
22 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
23 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
24 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
27 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
28 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
29 Since the messages are listed in alphabetical order, the symbols
30 C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
34 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
36 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try that
39 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
41 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
42 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
43 if you want to localize a package variable.
45 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
47 (W) A lexical 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 "no" not allowed in expression
55 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
56 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
58 =item "use" not allowed in expression
60 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
61 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
63 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
65 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
68 =item / cannot take a count
70 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
71 but you have also specified an explicit size for the string.
74 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
76 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
77 which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z
78 to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked.
81 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
83 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
84 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*.
87 =item / must follow a numeric type
89 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#',
90 but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.
93 =item % may only be used in unpack
95 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
96 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
97 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
99 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
101 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
102 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
104 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
106 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
107 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
109 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
111 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
112 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
113 C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood literally.
115 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
117 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
118 by Perl inside character classes. The character was understood literally.
120 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
122 (W) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
123 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true
124 or false result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string,
125 which is probably not what you had in mind.
127 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
129 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
130 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
131 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
133 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
135 (W) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a
136 definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call
137 conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype
138 declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine
139 definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively,
140 if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put
141 an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L<perlsub>.
143 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
145 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
148 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
150 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
152 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
155 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
157 or a hash slice, such as
159 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
160 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
162 =item %s did not return a true value
164 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
165 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
166 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
167 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
169 =item %s found where operator expected
171 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
172 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
173 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
174 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
176 =item %s had compilation errors
178 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
180 =item %s has too many errors
182 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
183 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
185 =item %s matches null string many times
187 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
188 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
190 =item %s never introduced
192 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
193 before it could possibly have been used.
195 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
197 (W) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a package-specific handler.
198 That name might have a meaning to Perl itself some day, even though it
199 doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a mixed-case attribute name, instead.
204 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
206 =item %s: Command not found
208 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
209 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
212 =item %s: Expression syntax
214 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
215 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
218 =item %s: Undefined variable
220 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
221 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
226 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
227 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
230 =item (in cleanup) %s
232 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
233 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
234 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
235 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
236 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
239 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
240 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
242 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
244 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
245 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
246 the previous line just because you saw this message.
248 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
250 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
251 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
253 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
255 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
256 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
258 =item C<-p> destination: %s
260 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
261 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
262 redirected it with select().)
264 =item 500 Server error
268 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
270 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
271 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
273 =item @ outside of string
275 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
276 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
278 =item <> should be quotes
280 (F) You wrote C<require E<lt>fileE<gt>> when you should have written
283 =item accept() on closed fd
285 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
286 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
288 =item Allocation too large: %lx
290 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
292 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
294 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
295 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
296 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
297 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
298 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
299 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
301 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
303 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
305 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
307 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
308 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
309 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
311 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
313 (W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
314 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
315 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
318 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
319 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
320 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
321 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
323 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
324 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
325 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">
328 =item Args must match #! line
330 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
331 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
332 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
333 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
335 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
337 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
338 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
339 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
341 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
343 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
344 is now heavily deprecated.
346 =item assertion botched: %s
348 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
350 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
352 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
354 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
356 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
357 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
358 know which context to supply to the right side.
360 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
362 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
363 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
366 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
368 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
369 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
370 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
371 that can no longer be found in the table.
373 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
375 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
376 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
377 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
378 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
381 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
383 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
385 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
387 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
388 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
389 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
390 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
391 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
392 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
394 =item Attempt to join self
396 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
397 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
398 need to move the join() to some other thread.
400 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
402 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
403 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
404 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
405 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
406 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
409 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
411 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
412 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
413 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
415 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
417 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
418 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
419 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
420 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
422 =item Bad filehandle: %s
424 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
425 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
426 did it in another package.
428 =item Bad free() ignored
430 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
431 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
432 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
434 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
435 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
436 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
441 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
443 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
445 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
446 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
449 =item Bad name after %s::
451 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
452 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
461 $sym = "mypack::$var";
463 =item Bad realloc() ignored
465 (S) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had never been
466 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
467 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
469 =item Bad symbol for array
471 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
472 wasn't a symbol table entry.
474 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
476 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
477 wasn't a symbol table entry.
479 =item Bad symbol for hash
481 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
482 wasn't a symbol table entry.
484 =item Badly placed ()'s
486 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
487 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
490 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
492 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
493 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
494 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
496 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
498 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
499 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
500 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
502 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
504 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
505 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
507 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
509 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
510 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
511 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
512 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
513 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
515 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
517 (W) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
518 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
519 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
521 =item bind() on closed fd
523 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
524 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
526 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
528 (W) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
530 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
532 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
534 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
536 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
537 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
538 so it was truncated to the string shown.
540 =item Callback called exit
542 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
543 exited by calling exit.
545 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
547 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
548 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
549 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
550 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
552 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
554 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
555 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
557 =item Can't "last" outside a block
559 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
560 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
561 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
562 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
563 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
564 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
566 =item Can't "next" outside a block
568 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
569 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
570 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
571 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
572 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
574 =item Can't read CRTL environ
576 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
577 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
578 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
579 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
581 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
583 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
584 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
585 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
586 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
587 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
589 =item Can't bless non-reference value
591 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
592 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
594 =item Can't break at that line
596 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
597 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
600 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
602 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
603 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
604 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
606 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
608 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
609 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
610 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
611 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
613 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
615 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
616 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
617 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
618 Something like this will reproduce the error:
621 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
622 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
624 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
626 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
627 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
628 Something like this will reproduce the error:
631 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
632 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
634 =item Can't chdir to %s
636 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
637 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
639 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
641 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
643 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
645 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
646 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
656 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
658 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
660 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
661 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
663 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
665 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
666 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
668 =item Can't coerce array into hash
670 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
671 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
672 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
674 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
676 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
677 or other plumbing problems.
679 =item Can't declare %s in my
681 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
682 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
684 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
686 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
688 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
690 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
691 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
694 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
696 (S) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
697 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
698 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
700 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
702 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
703 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
705 =item Can't do setegid!
707 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
710 =item Can't do seteuid!
712 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
714 =item Can't do setuid
716 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
717 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
718 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
719 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
720 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
721 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
723 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
725 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
726 without flags is emulated.
728 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
730 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
731 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
733 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
735 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
736 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
738 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
740 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
741 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
742 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
743 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
744 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
745 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
749 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
750 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
751 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
753 =item Can't execute %s
755 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
756 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
758 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
760 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
761 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
762 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
764 =item Can't find %s on PATH
766 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
769 =item Can't find label %s
771 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
772 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
774 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
776 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
777 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
778 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
780 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
782 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
783 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
784 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
788 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
790 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
792 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
793 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
794 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
795 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
796 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
797 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
798 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
799 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
800 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
801 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
802 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
803 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
804 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
805 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
807 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
809 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
810 can't retrieve its name for later use.
812 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
814 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
815 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
817 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
819 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
820 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
821 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
824 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
826 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
827 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
829 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
831 (W) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD signal
832 (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this signal
833 will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
834 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value.
835 This situation typically indicates that the parent program under
836 which Perl may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
838 =item Can't localize through a reference
840 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
841 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
842 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
843 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
845 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
847 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
848 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
849 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
852 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
854 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
855 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
856 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
857 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
859 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
861 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
862 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
863 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
864 doing C<make install>.
866 =item Can't locate %s
868 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
869 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
870 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
871 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra
872 library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or
873 maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>
876 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
878 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
879 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
880 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
882 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
884 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
887 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
889 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
891 =item Can't modify %s in %s
893 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
894 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
896 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
898 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
899 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
901 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
903 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
906 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
908 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
911 =item Can't open %s: %s
913 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
914 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
915 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
916 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
919 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
921 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
922 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
923 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
924 and then read it in under a different file handle.
926 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
928 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
929 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
930 command line for writing.
932 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
934 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
935 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
937 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
939 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
940 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
943 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
945 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
946 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
948 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
950 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
952 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
954 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
955 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
956 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
957 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
959 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
961 (S) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup file. Perl
962 was unable to remove the original file to replace it with the modified
963 file. The file was left unmodified.
965 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
967 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
968 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
970 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
972 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
973 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
975 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
977 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
980 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
982 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
983 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
985 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
987 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such
988 as temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue.
991 =item Can't stat script "%s"
993 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
994 it open already. Bizarre.
996 =item Can't swap uid and euid
998 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
1001 =item Can't take log of %g
1003 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1004 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1005 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
1006 the negative numbers.
1008 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1010 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1011 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1012 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1014 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1016 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1017 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1018 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1022 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1023 as the main Perl stack.
1025 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
1027 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
1028 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
1029 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
1030 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1032 =item Can't upgrade to undef
1034 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
1035 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
1036 code calling sv_upgrade.
1038 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
1040 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1041 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1042 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1044 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1046 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1047 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
1048 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1049 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1052 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
1054 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
1055 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
1056 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
1058 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1060 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
1062 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1064 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1065 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1066 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1068 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
1070 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
1071 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
1072 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
1073 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
1074 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
1076 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
1078 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1079 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1081 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1083 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1084 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1086 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1088 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1089 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1091 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1093 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
1094 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
1095 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
1096 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1099 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1101 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1102 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1103 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1105 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1107 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1108 references can be weakened.
1110 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1112 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
1113 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1114 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1116 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
1118 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
1119 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
1121 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1123 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1124 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1125 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1127 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1129 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
1132 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1134 (W) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1135 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
1136 for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .]
1137 are not currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for
1140 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1142 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
1143 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
1144 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1145 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1146 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1148 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1150 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1151 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
1152 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1153 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1154 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1156 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
1158 (W) A novice will sometimes say
1160 chmod 777, $filename
1162 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1163 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1165 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1167 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1169 =item Compilation failed in require
1171 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1172 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1173 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1175 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1177 (W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1178 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1179 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1180 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1181 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1182 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1183 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1184 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1185 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1187 =item connect() on closed fd
1189 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1190 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1192 =item Constant is not %s reference
1194 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1195 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1196 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1197 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1198 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1200 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1202 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1203 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1206 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1208 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1209 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1212 =item constant(%s): %%^H is not localized
1214 (F) When setting compile-time-lexicalized hash %^H one should set the
1215 corresponding bit of $^H as well.
1217 =item constant(%s): %s
1219 (F) Compile-time-substitutions (such as overloaded constants and
1220 character names) were not correctly set up.
1222 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1224 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1226 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1228 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1230 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1232 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1233 expression compiler gave it.
1235 =item corrupted regexp program
1237 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1238 a valid magic number.
1240 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1242 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1243 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1244 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1245 case it indicates something else.
1247 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1249 (D) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
1250 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
1251 just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1253 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1255 (D) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
1256 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
1257 just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1259 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1261 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1262 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1263 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1265 =item Did not produce a valid header
1269 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1271 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1273 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1275 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1276 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1280 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1281 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1283 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1285 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1286 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1287 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1288 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1289 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1290 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1291 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1292 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1295 =item Document contains no data
1299 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1301 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1303 =item do_study: out of memory
1305 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1307 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1309 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1312 =item elseif should be elsif
1314 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1315 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1316 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1317 unlikely to be what you want.
1319 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
1321 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1322 The interpreter is immediately exited.
1324 =item entering effective %s failed
1326 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1327 effective uids or gids failed.
1329 =item Error converting file specification %s
1331 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1332 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1333 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1334 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1335 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1337 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1339 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1340 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1341 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1343 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1345 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1346 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1347 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1349 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1351 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1352 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1353 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1354 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1355 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1356 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1358 =item Excessively long <> operator
1360 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1361 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1362 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1363 variable and glob that.
1365 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1367 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1369 =item Exiting eval via %s
1371 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1372 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1374 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1376 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1377 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1378 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1380 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1382 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1383 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1385 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1387 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1388 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1390 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1392 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1393 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1394 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1395 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1397 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1399 (W) A character class range must start and end at a literal character, not
1400 another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-" in your false
1401 range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the "-", "\-".
1404 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1406 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1407 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1408 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1409 the Perl source code is distressed.
1411 =item fcntl is not implemented
1413 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1414 PDP-11 or something?
1416 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1418 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1419 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1420 the FileHandle package.
1422 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1424 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1425 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1426 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1427 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1430 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1432 (W) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
1433 intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1434 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1435 you intended only to read from the file, use "E<lt>". See
1438 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1440 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1441 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1442 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1445 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1447 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1448 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1449 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1452 =item Format %s redefined
1454 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1458 eval "format NAME =...";
1461 =item Format not terminated
1463 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1464 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1466 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1476 (or something like that).
1478 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1480 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1482 =item gethostent not implemented
1484 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1485 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1488 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1490 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1491 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1493 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1495 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1496 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1498 =item Glob not terminated
1500 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1501 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1502 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1503 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1505 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1507 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1508 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1509 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1511 =item goto must have label
1513 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1514 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1516 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1518 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1519 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1520 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1522 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1524 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1525 is now heavily deprecated.
1527 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1529 (W) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1530 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1531 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1533 =item Identifier too long
1535 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1536 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1537 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1538 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1540 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1542 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1543 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1544 used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1546 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1548 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1549 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1550 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1553 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1555 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1556 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1557 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1559 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1560 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1561 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1562 properly converting the text file format.
1564 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1565 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1566 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1568 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1569 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1572 =item Illegal division by zero
1574 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1575 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1577 =item Illegal modulus zero
1579 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1580 don't take to this kindly.
1582 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1584 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1586 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1588 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1590 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1592 (W) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1593 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1595 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1597 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1598 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1600 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1602 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f
1603 in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1604 before the illegal character.
1606 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1608 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1609 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1611 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1613 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1614 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1616 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1618 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1619 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1620 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1621 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1622 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1623 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1624 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1626 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1628 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1629 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1630 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1631 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1632 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1633 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1634 for more information.
1636 =item Insecure directory in %s
1638 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1639 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1642 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1644 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1645 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1646 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1647 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1648 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1650 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1652 (W) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either
1653 as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for your
1654 architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a
1655 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1656 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1657 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1658 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1659 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1662 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1664 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1665 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1666 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1667 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1668 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1669 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1670 and execute the specified command.
1672 =item internal disaster in regexp
1674 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1676 =item glob failed (%s)
1678 (W) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1679 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1680 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1681 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1682 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1683 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1684 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1685 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1686 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1687 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1690 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1692 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1694 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1696 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1697 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1699 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1701 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not recognized
1702 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1704 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1706 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1707 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1709 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1711 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1712 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1714 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1716 (F) Something other than a comma or whitespace was seen between the
1717 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute
1718 had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated
1719 too soon. See L<attributes>.
1721 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1723 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1724 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1727 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1729 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1730 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1733 =item ioctl is not implemented
1735 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1736 strange for a machine that supports C.
1738 =item junk on end of regexp
1740 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1742 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1744 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1745 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1746 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1748 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1750 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1751 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1754 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1756 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1757 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1760 =item leaving effective %s failed
1762 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1763 effective uids or gids failed.
1765 =item listen() on closed fd
1767 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1768 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1770 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1772 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1773 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context.
1774 See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1776 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1778 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1779 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1781 =item Method %s not permitted
1785 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1787 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1788 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1789 ended earlier on the current line.
1791 =item Misplaced _ in number
1793 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1795 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1797 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1798 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1799 one line to the next.
1801 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1803 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1804 double-quotish context.
1806 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1808 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1809 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1811 =item Missing command in piped open
1813 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1814 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1816 =item Missing operator before %s?
1818 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1819 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1821 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1823 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than
1824 closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place
1825 you were last editing.
1827 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1829 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1830 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1831 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1833 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1836 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1838 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1840 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1841 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1844 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1846 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1847 be created for some peculiar reason.
1849 =item Module name must be constant
1851 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1853 =item msg%s not implemented
1855 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1857 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1859 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1860 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1862 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1864 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that they
1865 have a name with which they can be found.
1867 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1869 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1870 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1871 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1872 provided for this purpose.
1874 =item Negative length
1876 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1877 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1879 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1881 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1882 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1884 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1885 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1889 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1890 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1892 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1894 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1895 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1896 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1899 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1901 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1903 =item No comma allowed after %s
1905 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1906 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1907 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1909 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1910 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1911 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1912 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1913 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1914 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1915 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1916 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1917 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1918 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1919 this error was triggered?
1921 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1923 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1924 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1925 want to pipe the output from this command.
1927 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1929 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1930 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1931 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1932 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1933 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1936 =item No dbm on this machine
1938 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1939 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1941 =item No DBsub routine
1943 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1944 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1945 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1946 ordinary subroutine call.
1948 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1950 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1951 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1952 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1954 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1956 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1957 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1958 from which to read data for stdin.
1960 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1962 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1963 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1964 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1966 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1968 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1969 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1970 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1972 =item No Perl script found in input
1974 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1975 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1977 =item No setregid available
1979 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1982 =item No setreuid available
1984 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1987 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1989 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1992 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
1994 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
1995 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
1996 array indices for that to work.
1998 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2000 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
2001 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
2002 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
2003 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2005 =item No such pipe open
2007 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2008 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
2009 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2011 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2013 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
2014 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2016 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2018 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2019 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2020 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
2021 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
2024 =item Not a CODE reference
2026 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2027 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2028 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2029 See also L<perlref>.
2031 =item Not a format reference
2033 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2034 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2036 =item Not a GLOB reference
2038 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
2039 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2040 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
2041 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2043 =item Not a HASH reference
2045 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
2046 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2047 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2049 =item Not a perl script
2051 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2052 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2055 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2057 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
2058 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2059 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2061 =item Not a subroutine reference
2063 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2064 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2065 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2066 See also L<perlref>.
2068 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2070 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2071 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2073 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2075 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
2076 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2077 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2079 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2081 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2083 =item Not enough format arguments
2085 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
2088 =item Null filename used
2090 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
2091 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2093 =item Null picture in formline
2095 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2096 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2097 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2099 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2101 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
2105 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2107 =item NULL regexp argument
2109 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2111 =item NULL regexp parameter
2113 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2115 =item Number too long
2117 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
2118 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
2119 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
2120 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
2122 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2124 (W) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295)
2125 and therefore non-portable between systems. See L<perlport> for more
2126 on portability concerns.
2128 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2130 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2132 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
2133 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2135 =item Offset outside string
2137 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2138 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
2139 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
2140 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2144 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2148 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2150 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2152 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
2153 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
2154 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
2155 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
2156 true. See L<overload>.
2158 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2160 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
2161 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
2162 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
2163 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
2164 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
2166 =item Out of memory!
2168 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2169 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl
2170 has no option but to exit immediately.
2172 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2174 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
2175 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
2177 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2179 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2180 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
2182 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2183 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2184 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
2185 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
2186 error is trappable I<once>.
2188 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2190 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2191 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2192 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
2193 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2195 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2197 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2198 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
2199 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2203 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
2206 =item panic: ck_grep
2208 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2210 =item panic: ck_split
2212 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2214 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2216 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
2217 are in the savestack.
2219 =item panic: del_backref
2221 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2226 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2227 it wasn't an eval context.
2229 =item panic: do_match
2231 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2233 =item panic: do_split
2235 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2237 =item panic: do_subst
2239 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2241 =item panic: do_trans
2243 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2247 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2251 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2252 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2254 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2256 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2258 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2260 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2262 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2264 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2268 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2269 it wasn't a block context.
2271 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2273 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
2275 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2277 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2278 invalid enum on the top of it.
2282 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2284 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2286 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2287 references to an object.
2289 =item panic: mapstart
2291 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2293 =item panic: null array
2295 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2297 =item panic: pad_alloc
2299 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2300 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2302 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2304 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2305 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2307 =item panic: pad_free po
2309 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2311 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2313 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2314 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2316 =item panic: pad_sv po
2318 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2320 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2322 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2323 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2325 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2327 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2329 =item panic: pp_iter
2331 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2333 =item panic: realloc
2335 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2337 =item panic: restartop
2339 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2340 didn't supply the destination.
2344 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2345 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2347 =item panic: scan_num
2349 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2351 =item panic: sv_insert
2353 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2356 =item panic: top_env
2358 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2362 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2366 (P) An internal error.
2368 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2370 (W) You said something like
2376 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2378 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2380 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2382 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2383 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2384 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2386 =item Permission denied
2388 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2390 =item pid %x not a child
2392 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2393 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2394 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2396 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2398 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2399 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2401 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2403 (W) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2404 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2406 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2408 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2409 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2410 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2411 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2413 You probably wrote something like this:
2420 when you should have written this:
2427 If you really want comments, build your list the
2428 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2432 'b', # another comment
2435 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2437 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2438 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2439 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2442 You probably wrote something like this:
2446 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2447 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2451 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2453 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2454 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2455 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2456 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2458 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2460 (S) The old irregular construct
2464 is now misinterpreted as
2468 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2469 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2470 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2473 =item Premature end of script headers
2477 =item print on closed filehandle %s
2479 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2480 Check your logic flow.
2482 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
2484 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2485 Check your logic flow.
2487 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2489 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2490 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2491 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2495 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2497 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2498 or defined with a different function prototype.
2500 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2502 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2503 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2504 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2505 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2507 =item Read on closed filehandle %s
2509 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2510 Check your logic flow.
2512 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2514 (S) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had already
2517 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2519 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2521 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2523 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2524 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2525 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2527 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2529 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2530 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2532 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2534 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2535 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2537 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2539 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2540 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2541 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2542 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2544 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2545 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2546 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2547 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2549 =item Reference is already weak
2551 (W) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2552 Doing so has no effect.
2554 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2556 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2557 reference count of other than 1.
2559 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2561 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2562 could match an empty string.
2564 =item regexp memory corruption
2566 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2567 expression compiler gave it.
2569 =item regexp out of space
2571 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2573 =item Reversed %s= operator
2575 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2576 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2578 =item Runaway format
2580 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2581 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2582 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2583 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2584 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2586 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2588 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2589 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2590 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2591 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2592 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2593 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2595 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2596 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2597 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2600 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2602 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2603 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2604 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2605 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2606 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2607 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2609 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2610 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2611 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2614 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2616 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2617 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2619 =item Search pattern not terminated
2621 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2622 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2623 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2625 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2627 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2628 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2630 =item select not implemented
2632 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2634 =item sem%s not implemented
2636 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2638 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2640 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2641 that had previously been marked as free.
2643 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2645 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2646 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2648 =item Send on closed socket
2650 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2651 Check your logic flow.
2653 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2655 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2658 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2660 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2661 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2663 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2665 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2666 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2668 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2670 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2675 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
2676 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error
2677 text varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen
2678 variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted",
2679 "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and
2680 "Did not produce a valid header".
2682 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2684 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2685 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2686 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2687 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2688 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2689 for more information:
2691 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2692 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2693 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2694 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2695 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2697 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2699 =item setegid() not implemented
2701 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2702 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2705 =item seteuid() not implemented
2707 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2708 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2711 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
2713 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no arguments,
2714 unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process group ID.
2716 =item setrgid() not implemented
2718 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2719 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2722 =item setruid() not implemented
2724 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2725 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2728 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2730 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2731 because the world might have written on it already.
2733 =item shm%s not implemented
2735 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2737 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2739 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2741 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2743 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2744 put it into the wrong package?
2746 =item sort is now a reserved word
2748 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2749 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2751 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2753 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2754 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2755 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2757 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2759 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2760 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2764 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2765 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2766 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2768 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2770 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2771 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2773 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2775 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2776 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2777 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2778 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2781 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2783 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2784 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2785 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2786 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2787 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2789 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2791 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2792 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2795 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2797 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2801 eval "sub name { ... }";
2804 =item Substitution loop
2806 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2807 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2808 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2809 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2811 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2813 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2814 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2815 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2817 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2819 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2820 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2821 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2823 =item substr outside of string
2825 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2826 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2827 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2828 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2829 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2831 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2833 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2834 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2836 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2838 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2839 real and effective uids or gids.
2843 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2845 A keyword is misspelled.
2846 A semicolon is missing.
2848 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2849 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2850 A closing quote is missing.
2852 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2853 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2854 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2855 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2856 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2857 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2858 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2859 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2860 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2862 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2864 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2865 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2868 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2870 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2871 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2872 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2873 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2875 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2877 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2878 Check your logic flow.
2880 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2882 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2883 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2885 =item tell() on unopened file
2887 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2888 never opened or has since been closed.
2890 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2892 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2893 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2895 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2897 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2898 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2907 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2908 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2910 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2912 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2913 to the probings of Configure.
2915 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2917 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2918 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2919 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2920 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2923 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2925 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2926 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2927 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2929 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
2931 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2933 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2934 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2935 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2936 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2937 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
2938 %ENV which produced the warning.
2940 =item times not implemented
2942 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2943 you're not running on Unix.
2945 =item Too few args to syscall
2947 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2948 system call to call, silly dilly.
2950 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2952 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2953 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2954 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2955 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2958 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2959 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2960 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2961 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2963 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2964 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2966 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2968 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2969 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2970 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2976 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2977 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2980 =item Too many args to syscall
2982 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2984 =item Too many arguments for %s
2986 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2988 =item trailing \ in regexp
2990 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2993 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
2995 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2996 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
2997 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
2999 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3001 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3004 =item truncate not implemented
3006 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3007 Configure knows about.
3009 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3011 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3012 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3013 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3014 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3016 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3018 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3019 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3021 =item umask not implemented
3023 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
3024 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3026 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3028 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3030 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3032 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
3033 contexts were entered and left.
3035 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3037 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
3038 values were temporarily localized.
3040 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3042 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
3043 were entered and left.
3045 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3047 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
3048 scalars were allocated and freed.
3050 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3052 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3053 another package? See L<perlform>.
3055 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3057 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
3058 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3060 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3062 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
3063 has since been undefined.
3065 =item Undefined subroutine called
3067 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3068 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3070 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3072 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
3073 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3075 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3077 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3078 another package? See L<perlform>.
3080 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3082 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
3083 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
3085 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3087 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3088 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3090 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3092 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
3094 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3096 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3097 of valid modes: C<L<lt>>, C<L<gt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<+L<lt>>,
3098 C<+L<gt>>, C<+E<gt>E<gt>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3100 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3102 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3103 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3104 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3105 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3107 =item unmatched () in regexp
3109 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3110 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
3111 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3113 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3115 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than
3116 opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket.
3117 As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the
3118 place you were last editing.
3120 =item unmatched [] in regexp
3122 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3123 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
3126 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3128 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
3129 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
3130 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
3132 =item Unrecognized character %s
3134 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3135 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3136 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3138 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3140 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
3143 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3145 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
3146 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
3148 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3150 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
3151 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
3152 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
3154 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3156 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
3157 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
3158 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3160 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3162 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3164 =item Unsupported function fork
3166 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3168 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
3169 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
3170 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3172 =item Unsupported function %s
3174 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3175 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3177 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3179 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3180 least that's what Configure thought.
3182 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
3184 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3185 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
3186 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
3187 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3189 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3191 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing an
3192 attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3193 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3194 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3196 =item Unterminated attribute list
3198 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start
3199 of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3200 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute
3201 too soon. See L<attributes>.
3203 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3205 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
3206 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3208 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3210 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
3211 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
3212 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
3213 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3215 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3217 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3218 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3220 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
3222 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
3223 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3225 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3227 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
3228 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
3229 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3231 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3233 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
3234 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
3235 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
3236 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
3238 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
3239 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
3240 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
3241 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
3242 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
3244 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3245 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
3246 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
3247 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
3249 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
3250 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3251 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3253 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3255 (D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
3256 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
3257 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
3258 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
3259 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
3260 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3262 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3264 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
3265 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
3268 =item Use of uninitialized value
3270 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
3271 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
3272 warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3274 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3276 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3278 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3280 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
3281 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
3282 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
3283 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
3284 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
3285 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
3289 when you meant to say
3291 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3293 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3294 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3299 when you should have said
3303 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3304 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3305 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3306 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3307 L<perlref> for more on this.
3309 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3311 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
3312 valid when C<untie> was called.
3314 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3316 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
3317 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
3318 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
3319 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
3320 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
3322 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3324 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3325 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3326 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3329 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3331 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
3332 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3333 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
3334 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
3335 on the front of your variable.
3337 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3339 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
3340 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
3341 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
3342 the outermost subroutine. For example:
3344 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3346 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3347 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
3348 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3349 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
3350 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
3351 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
3354 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
3355 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
3356 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
3357 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
3359 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3361 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
3362 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3364 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3365 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3366 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3367 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3368 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3369 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3371 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3372 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3373 will I<never> share the given variable.
3375 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3376 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3377 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3378 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3381 =item Variable syntax
3383 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3384 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3387 =item Version number must be a constant number
3389 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3390 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3393 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3395 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3397 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3398 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3401 are supported and installed on your system.
3402 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3404 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3405 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3406 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3407 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3408 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3409 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3410 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3411 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3412 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3414 =item Warning: something's wrong
3416 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3417 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3419 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3421 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3422 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3424 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3426 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3427 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3428 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3429 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3433 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3437 but in actual fact, you got
3441 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3443 =item Write on closed filehandle %s
3445 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3446 Check your logic flow.
3448 =item X outside of string
3450 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3451 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3453 =item x outside of string
3455 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3456 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3458 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3460 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3462 =item Xsub called in sort
3464 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3466 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3468 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3469 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3470 Use a filename instead.
3472 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3474 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3475 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3476 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3477 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3479 =item You need to quote "%s"
3481 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3482 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3483 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3484 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3486 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
3488 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3489 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3490 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
3492 =item \1 better written as $1
3494 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3495 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3496 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3497 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3498 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3500 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3502 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3503 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3504 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3506 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3508 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3509 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3510 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3511 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3514 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3521 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3523 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3524 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3526 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3528 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3536 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3537 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3538 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3539 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3541 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3543 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3544 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3546 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3548 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3549 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3550 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3551 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"