3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item A thread exited while %d other threads were still running
49 (W) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
50 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
51 Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
52 created threads by joining them, and only then exit from then main
53 thread. See L<threads>.
55 =item accept() on closed socket %s
57 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
58 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
61 =item Allocation too large: %lx
63 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
65 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
67 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
70 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
72 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
73 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
74 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
75 subroutine is not imported.
77 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
78 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
79 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
80 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
82 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
83 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
84 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
87 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
89 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
90 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
91 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
92 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
94 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
96 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
97 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
98 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
100 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
102 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
103 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
104 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
106 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
108 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
109 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
110 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
111 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
112 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
114 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
121 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
123 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
124 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
125 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
126 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
127 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
128 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
131 =item Args must match #! line
133 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
134 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
135 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
136 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
138 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
140 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
142 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
144 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
149 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
151 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
157 or a hash or array slice, such as:
159 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
160 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
162 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
164 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
165 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
168 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
170 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
171 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
172 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
174 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
176 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
177 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
179 =item assertion botched: %s
181 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
183 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
185 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
187 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
189 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
190 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
191 know which context to supply to the right side.
193 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
195 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
196 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
198 =item Attempt to clear a restricted hash
200 (F) It is currently not allowed to clear a restricted hash, even if the
201 new hash would contain the same keys as before. This may change in
204 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
206 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
207 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
209 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
211 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
212 which is not in its key set.
214 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
216 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
217 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
218 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
224 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
226 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
227 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
230 bless $self, "$proto";
232 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
234 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
235 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
236 outside any of those arenas.
238 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
240 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
241 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
242 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
243 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
245 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
247 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
248 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
249 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
250 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
253 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
255 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
257 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
259 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
260 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
261 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
262 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
263 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
264 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
267 =item Attempt to join self
269 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
270 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
271 to move the join() to some other thread.
273 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
275 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
276 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
277 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
278 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
279 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
282 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
284 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
285 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
286 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
288 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
290 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
291 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
292 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
293 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
295 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
297 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
298 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
299 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
301 =item Bad filehandle: %s
303 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
304 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
305 open(), or did it in another package.
307 =item Bad free() ignored
309 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
310 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
311 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
313 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
314 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
315 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
319 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
321 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
323 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
324 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
327 =item Badly placed ()'s
329 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
330 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
333 =item Bad name after %s::
335 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
336 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
345 $sym = "mypack::$var";
347 =item Bad realloc() ignored
349 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
350 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
351 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
353 =item Bad symbol for array
355 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
356 wasn't a symbol table entry.
358 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
360 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
361 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
363 =item Bad symbol for hash
365 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
366 wasn't a symbol table entry.
368 =item Bareword found in conditional
370 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
371 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
372 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
376 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
379 use constant TYPO => 1;
380 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
382 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
384 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
386 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
387 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
388 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
390 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
392 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
393 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
394 you need to predeclare a package?
396 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
398 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
399 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
402 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
404 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
405 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
406 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
407 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
408 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
410 =item \1 better written as $1
412 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
413 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
414 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
415 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
416 there are more than 9 backreferences.
418 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
420 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
421 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
422 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
424 =item bind() on closed socket %s
426 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
427 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
429 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
431 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
432 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
434 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
436 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
438 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
440 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
443 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
445 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
446 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
448 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
450 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
451 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
452 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
454 =item Callback called exit
456 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
457 exited by calling exit.
459 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
461 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
462 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
463 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
464 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
465 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
466 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
467 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
468 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
470 =item / cannot take a count
472 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
473 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
476 =item Can't bless non-reference value
478 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
479 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
481 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
483 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
484 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
485 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
487 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
489 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
490 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
491 like this will reproduce the error:
494 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
495 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
497 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
499 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
500 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
501 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
502 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
504 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
506 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
507 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
508 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
509 Something like this will reproduce the error:
512 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
513 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
515 =item Can't chdir to %s
517 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
518 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
520 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
522 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
525 =item Can't coerce array into hash
527 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
528 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
529 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
531 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
533 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
534 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
544 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
546 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
548 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
549 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
551 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
553 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
554 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
556 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
558 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
559 quotas or other plumbing problems.
561 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
563 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
564 class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be
565 extended for other types of variables in future.
567 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
569 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
570 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
572 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
574 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
575 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
577 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
579 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
582 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
584 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
585 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
586 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
588 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
590 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
591 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
592 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
594 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
596 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
597 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
598 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
600 =item Can't do setegid!
602 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
605 =item Can't do seteuid!
607 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
609 =item Can't do setuid
611 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
612 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
613 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
614 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
615 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
616 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
618 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
620 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
621 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
623 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
625 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
626 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
629 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
631 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
632 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
633 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
634 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
635 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
636 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
641 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
642 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
643 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
645 =item Can't execute %s
647 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
648 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
650 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
652 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
653 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
655 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
657 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
658 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
659 (remember that the names of character properties consist only of
660 alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
662 =item Can't find label %s
664 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
665 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
667 =item Can't find %s on PATH
669 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
672 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
674 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
675 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
676 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
678 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
680 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
681 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
682 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
684 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
686 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
687 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
688 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
690 =item Can't find %s property definition %s
692 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property for
693 example \p{Lu} is all uppercase letters. if you did mean to use a
694 Unicode property, see L<perlunicode> for the list of known properties.
695 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
696 C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
701 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
704 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
706 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
707 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
708 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
709 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
710 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
711 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
712 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
713 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
714 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
715 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
716 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
717 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
718 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
719 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
720 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
722 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
724 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
725 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
727 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
729 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
730 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
732 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
734 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
735 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
737 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
739 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
740 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
741 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
742 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
744 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
746 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
747 "string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
748 probably don't want to.)
750 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
752 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
753 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
754 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
755 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
757 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
759 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
760 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
761 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
762 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
763 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
764 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
766 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
768 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
769 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
770 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
771 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
772 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
773 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
776 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
778 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
779 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
780 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
783 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
785 (F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
786 reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
787 can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
788 directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
790 =item Can't localize through a reference
792 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
793 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
794 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
795 that $ref will still be a reference.
797 =item Can't locate %s
799 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
800 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
801 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
802 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
803 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
804 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
805 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
807 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
809 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
810 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
811 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
812 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
814 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
816 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
817 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
818 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
820 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
822 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
823 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
825 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
827 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
828 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
829 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
831 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
833 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
834 doesn't seem to exist.
836 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
838 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
841 =item Can't modify %s in %s
843 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
844 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
846 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
848 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
851 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
853 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
854 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
856 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
858 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
861 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
863 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
864 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
865 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
866 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
867 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
868 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
870 =item Can't open %s: %s
872 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
873 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
874 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
875 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
878 =item Can't open a reference
880 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
881 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
885 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
886 open is not supported.
888 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
890 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
891 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
892 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
893 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
895 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
897 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
898 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
899 the command line for writing.
901 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
903 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
904 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
905 command line for reading.
907 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
909 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
910 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
911 the command line for writing.
913 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
915 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
916 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
919 =item Can't open perl script%s: %s
921 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
923 =item Can't read CRTL environ
925 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
926 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
927 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
928 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
931 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
933 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
934 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
935 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
936 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
938 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
940 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
941 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
942 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
943 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
944 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
945 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
947 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
949 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
950 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
951 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
953 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
955 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
956 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
958 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
960 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
961 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
963 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
965 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
966 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
967 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
969 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
971 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
974 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
976 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
977 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
980 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
982 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
983 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
984 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
985 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
988 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
990 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
991 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
993 =item Can't stat script "%s"
995 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
996 open already. Bizarre.
998 =item Can't swap uid and euid
1000 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1003 =item Can't take log of %g
1005 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1006 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1007 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1010 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1012 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1013 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1014 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1016 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1018 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1019 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1020 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1024 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1025 as the main Perl stack.
1027 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
1029 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1030 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1031 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1032 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1034 =item Can't upgrade to undef
1036 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
1037 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
1040 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1042 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1043 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1045 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1047 (P) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1048 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1049 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1051 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1053 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1054 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1056 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1058 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1059 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1060 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1062 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1064 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1067 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1069 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1070 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1071 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1072 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1075 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1077 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1078 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1079 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1080 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1083 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1085 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1086 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1087 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1089 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1091 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1092 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1094 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1096 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1097 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1098 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1100 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1102 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1103 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1104 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1105 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1106 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1109 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1111 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1112 references can be weakened.
1114 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1116 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1117 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1118 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1120 =item Character in "C" format wrapped
1126 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1127 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1128 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1132 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1135 =item Character in "c" format wrapped
1141 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1142 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1143 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1145 pack("c", $x & 255);
1147 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1150 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1152 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1154 =item %s: Command not found
1156 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1157 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1159 =item Compilation failed in require
1161 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1162 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1163 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1165 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1167 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1168 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1169 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1170 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1171 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1172 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1173 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1174 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1175 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1177 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1179 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1180 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1181 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1182 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1183 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1184 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1185 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1189 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1191 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1192 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1193 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1194 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1195 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1196 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1197 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1200 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1202 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1203 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1204 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1206 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1208 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1209 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1210 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1211 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1214 =item Constant is not %s reference
1216 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1217 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1218 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1219 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1220 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1222 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1224 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1225 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1226 commentary and workarounds.
1228 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1230 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1231 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1234 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1236 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1237 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1239 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1241 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1243 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1245 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1246 expression compiler gave it.
1248 =item corrupted regexp program
1250 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1253 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1255 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1257 =item C<-p> destination: %s
1259 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1260 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1261 redirected it with select().)
1263 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1265 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1266 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1268 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1270 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1271 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1272 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1273 which case it indicates something else.
1275 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1277 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1278 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1279 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1281 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1283 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1284 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1285 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1287 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1289 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1290 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1292 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1294 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1295 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1296 that triggers this error.
1298 =item Did not produce a valid header
1302 =item %s did not return a true value
1304 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1305 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1306 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1307 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1309 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1311 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1314 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1316 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1317 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1320 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1322 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1323 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1328 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1329 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1331 =item Document contains no data
1335 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1337 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1338 define a C<$VERSION.>
1340 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1342 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1344 =item do_study: out of memory
1346 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1348 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1350 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1351 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1352 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1353 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1354 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1355 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1356 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1357 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1359 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1361 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1362 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1364 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1366 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1369 =item elseif should be elsif
1371 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1372 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1373 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1374 unlikely to be what you want.
1378 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1379 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1380 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1382 =item entering effective %s failed
1384 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1385 effective uids or gids failed.
1387 =item Error converting file specification %s
1389 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1390 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1391 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1392 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1393 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1395 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1397 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1398 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1399 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1401 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1403 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1404 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1405 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1406 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1407 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1408 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1410 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1412 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1413 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1414 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1416 =item Excessively long <> operator
1418 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1419 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1420 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1421 variable and glob that.
1423 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1425 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1427 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1429 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1431 =item Exiting eval via %s
1433 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1434 goto, or a loop control statement.
1436 =item Exiting format via %s
1438 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1439 goto, or a loop control statement.
1441 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1443 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1444 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1445 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1447 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1449 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1450 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1452 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1454 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1455 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1457 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1459 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1460 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1461 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1462 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1464 =item %s: Expression syntax
1466 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1467 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1469 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1471 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1472 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1473 routines has been prematurely ended.
1475 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1477 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1478 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1479 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1480 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1481 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1483 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1485 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1486 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1487 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1488 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1490 =item fcntl is not implemented
1492 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1493 PDP-11 or something?
1495 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1497 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1498 to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1499 or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1500 the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1502 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1504 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1505 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1506 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1507 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1509 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1511 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1512 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1513 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1516 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1518 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1519 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1520 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1523 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1525 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1526 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1527 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1530 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex;
1532 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1534 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
1535 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
1536 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1538 =item Format not terminated
1540 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1541 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1543 =item Format %s redefined
1545 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1548 no warnings 'redefine';
1549 eval "format NAME =...";
1552 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1562 (or something like that).
1564 =item %s found where operator expected
1566 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1567 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1568 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1569 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1571 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1573 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1575 =item gethostent not implemented
1577 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1578 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1581 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1583 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1584 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1586 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1588 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1589 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1591 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1593 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1594 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1595 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1597 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1599 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1600 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1601 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1604 =item glob failed (%s)
1606 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1607 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1608 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1609 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1610 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1611 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1612 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1613 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1614 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1615 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1616 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1618 =item Glob not terminated
1620 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1621 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1622 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1623 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1625 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1627 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1628 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1630 =item goto must have label
1632 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1633 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1635 =item %s-group starts with a count
1637 (F) In pack/unpack a ()-group started with a count. A count is
1638 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1640 =item %s had compilation errors
1642 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1644 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1646 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1647 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1648 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1650 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1652 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1653 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1655 =item %s has too many errors
1657 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1658 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1660 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1662 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1663 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1664 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1666 =item Identifier too long
1668 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1669 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1670 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1671 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1673 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1675 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1677 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1679 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1680 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1683 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1685 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1686 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1687 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1688 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1689 to your Perl administrator.
1691 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1693 (W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
1694 characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1696 =item Illegal division by zero
1698 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1699 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1702 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1704 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1705 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1706 number stopped before the illegal character.
1708 =item Illegal modulus zero
1710 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1711 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1713 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1715 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1716 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1718 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1720 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1722 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1724 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1725 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1727 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1729 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1730 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmtw]>.
1732 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1734 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1735 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1736 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1738 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1740 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1741 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1742 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1745 =item (in cleanup) %s
1747 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1748 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1749 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1750 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1751 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1753 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1754 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1756 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
1758 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
1759 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
1760 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
1762 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1764 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1765 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1766 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1767 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1768 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1769 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1770 L<perlsec> for more information.
1772 =item Insecure directory in %s
1774 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1775 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1776 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1778 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1780 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1781 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1782 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1783 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1784 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1786 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1788 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1789 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1790 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1791 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1792 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1793 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1794 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1795 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1798 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1800 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1801 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1804 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1806 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1807 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1808 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1809 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1810 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1811 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1813 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1815 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
1816 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1819 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1821 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1822 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1823 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1824 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1826 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1828 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1829 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1831 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1833 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1834 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1836 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1838 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1839 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1841 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1843 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1844 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
1845 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
1846 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1847 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1849 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1851 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1852 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1854 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1856 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1857 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1858 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1861 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1863 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1864 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1867 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1869 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1871 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1874 =item ioctl is not implemented
1876 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1877 strange for a machine that supports C.
1879 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
1881 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1882 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1884 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
1886 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
1887 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
1889 =item `%s' is not a code reference
1891 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
1892 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1895 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1897 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
1900 =item junk on end of regexp
1902 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1904 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1906 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1907 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1910 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1912 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1913 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1916 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1918 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1919 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1922 =item leaving effective %s failed
1924 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1925 effective uids or gids failed.
1927 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1929 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1930 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1933 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1935 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1936 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1937 instead on the filehandle.)
1939 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1941 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1942 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1943 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1945 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex;
1947 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1949 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
1950 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The <-- HERE
1951 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1953 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1955 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1962 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1963 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1964 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1965 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1967 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
1969 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
1970 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
1971 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
1972 when the function is called.
1974 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1976 Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1978 One possible cause is that you read in data that you thought to be in
1979 UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit data). Another
1980 possibility is careless use of utf8::upgrade().
1982 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1984 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1985 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1987 =item %s matches null string many times in regex;
1989 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1991 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1992 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
1993 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1996 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
1998 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
1999 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2002 =item % may only be used in unpack
2004 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2005 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2006 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2008 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2010 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2011 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2013 =item Method %s not permitted
2017 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2019 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2020 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2021 ended earlier on the current line.
2023 =item Misplaced _ in number
2025 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2026 separate two digits.
2028 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
2030 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2031 double-quotish context.
2033 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2035 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2036 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2038 =item Missing command in piped open
2040 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2041 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2044 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2046 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2047 they have a name with which they can be found.
2049 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2051 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2052 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2053 can vary from one line to the next.
2055 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2057 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
2058 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2060 =item Missing right brace on %s
2062 (F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
2064 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2066 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2067 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2070 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2072 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
2073 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2074 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2076 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2078 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2079 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2080 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2082 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2085 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2087 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2088 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2091 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2092 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2095 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2097 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2098 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2101 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2103 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2104 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2106 =item Module name must be constant
2108 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2110 =item Module name required with -%c option
2112 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2113 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2114 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2116 =item More than one argument to open
2118 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2119 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2120 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2121 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2123 =item msg%s not implemented
2125 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2127 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2129 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2130 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2132 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
2134 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
2135 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
2136 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2138 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
2140 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
2141 must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
2142 of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2144 =item / must follow a numeric type
2146 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
2147 follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2149 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2151 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2154 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2156 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2157 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2158 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2160 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2162 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2163 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2164 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2165 provided for this purpose.
2167 =item Negative length
2169 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2170 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2172 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2174 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2175 greater than or equal to zero.
2177 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2179 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2180 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2181 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2183 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2184 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2186 =item %s never introduced
2188 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2189 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2191 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2193 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2194 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2195 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2196 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2198 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2200 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2202 =item No comma allowed after %s
2204 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2205 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2206 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2208 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2209 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2210 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2211 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2212 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2213 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2214 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2215 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2216 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2217 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2218 this error was triggered?
2220 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2222 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2223 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2224 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2226 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2228 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2229 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2230 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2231 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2232 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2234 =item No dbm on this machine
2236 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2237 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2239 =item No DBsub routine
2241 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2242 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2243 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2244 ordinary subroutine call.
2246 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2248 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2249 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2250 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2252 =item No input file after < on command line
2254 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2255 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2256 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2260 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2261 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2263 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2265 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2266 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2268 =item No output file after > on command line
2270 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2271 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2272 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2274 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2276 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2277 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2278 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2280 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2282 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2283 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2284 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2286 =item No Perl script found in input
2288 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2289 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2291 =item No setregid available
2293 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2296 =item No setreuid available
2298 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2301 =item No space allowed after -%c
2303 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2304 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2306 =item No %s specified for -%c
2308 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2309 you haven't specified one.
2311 =item No such class %s
2313 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration, but
2314 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2316 =item No such pipe open
2318 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2319 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2320 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2322 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2324 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2325 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2326 array indices for that to work.
2328 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2330 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2331 not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2332 %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2333 %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2335 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2337 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2338 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2339 names on your system.
2341 =item Not a CODE reference
2343 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2344 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2345 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2348 =item Not a format reference
2350 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2351 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2353 =item Not a GLOB reference
2355 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2356 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2357 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2358 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2360 =item Not a HASH reference
2362 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2363 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2364 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2366 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2368 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2369 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2370 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2372 =item Not a perl script
2374 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2375 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2378 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2380 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2381 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2382 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2384 =item Not a subroutine reference
2386 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2387 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2388 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2391 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2393 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2394 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2396 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2398 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2400 =item Not enough format arguments
2402 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2403 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2407 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2408 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2411 =item %s not allowed in length fields
2413 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
2414 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes. Redesign
2417 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2419 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2420 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2421 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2422 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2423 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2425 =item Null filename used
2427 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2428 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2430 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2432 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2435 =item Null picture in formline
2437 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2438 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2439 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2443 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2445 =item NULL regexp argument
2447 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2449 =item NULL regexp parameter
2451 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2453 =item Number too long
2455 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2456 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2457 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2458 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2461 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2463 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2464 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2467 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2469 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2470 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2471 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2473 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2475 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2477 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2478 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
2480 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2482 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2483 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2485 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2487 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2488 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2490 =item Offset outside string
2492 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2493 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2494 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2495 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2497 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2499 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2500 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2502 =item %s() on unopened %s
2504 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2505 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2506 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2510 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2514 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2516 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2518 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2519 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2520 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2521 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2523 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2525 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2526 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2527 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2528 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2531 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2533 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2534 in the current lexical scope.
2536 =item Out of memory!
2538 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2539 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2540 no option but to exit immediately.
2542 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2544 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2545 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2546 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2547 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2549 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2551 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2552 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2555 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2556 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2557 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2558 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2559 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2560 where the failed request happened.
2562 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2564 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2565 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2566 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2568 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2570 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2571 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2574 =item @ outside of string
2576 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2577 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2579 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2581 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2582 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2583 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2584 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2588 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2589 page. See L<perlform>.
2593 (P) An internal error.
2595 =item panic: ck_grep
2597 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2599 =item panic: ck_split
2601 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2603 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2605 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2606 there are in the savestack.
2608 =item panic: del_backref
2610 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2615 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2616 it wasn't an eval context.
2618 =item panic: pp_match%s
2620 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2623 =item panic: do_subst
2625 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2628 =item panic: do_trans_%s
2630 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
2635 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2639 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2640 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2642 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2644 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2646 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2648 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2650 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2652 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2656 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2657 it wasn't a block context.
2659 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2661 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2664 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2666 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2667 invalid enum on the top of it.
2669 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2671 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2672 references to an object.
2676 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2678 =item panic: mapstart
2680 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2682 =item panic: null array
2684 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2686 =item panic: pad_alloc
2688 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2689 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2691 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2693 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2694 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2696 =item panic: pad_free po
2698 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2700 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2702 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2703 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2705 =item panic: pad_sv po
2707 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2709 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2711 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2712 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2714 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2716 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2718 =item panic: pp_iter
2720 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2722 =item panic: pp_split
2724 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2726 =item panic: realloc
2728 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2730 =item panic: restartop
2732 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2733 didn't supply the destination.
2737 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2738 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2740 =item panic: scan_num
2742 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2744 =item panic: sv_insert
2746 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2749 =item panic: top_env
2751 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2755 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2757 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2759 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2760 to even) byte length.
2762 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2764 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2770 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2772 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2774 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2776 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2777 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2778 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2780 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2782 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2783 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2785 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2787 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2789 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2790 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2793 are supported and installed on your system.
2794 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2796 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2797 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2798 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2799 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2800 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2801 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2802 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2803 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2804 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2805 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2807 =item perlio: argument list not closed for layer "%s"
2809 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
2810 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
2811 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
2812 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
2813 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
2814 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2816 =item perlio: invalid separator character %s in layer specification list %s
2818 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2819 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2820 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2821 list was terminated too soon.
2823 =item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2825 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
2826 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2827 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2828 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2829 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2830 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2832 =item Permission denied
2834 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2836 =item pid %x not a child
2838 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2839 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2840 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2842 =item P must have an explicit size
2844 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
2846 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex;
2848 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2850 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2851 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
2852 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
2853 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
2854 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
2855 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2857 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex;
2859 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2861 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2862 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
2863 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
2864 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
2865 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
2866 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2868 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex;
2870 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2872 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
2873 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
2874 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
2875 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
2876 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2877 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2879 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex;
2881 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2883 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
2884 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2885 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
2886 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
2887 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
2889 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2891 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2892 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2894 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2896 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2897 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2898 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2899 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2901 You probably wrote something like this:
2908 when you should have written this:
2915 If you really want comments, build your list the
2916 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2920 'b', # another comment
2923 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2925 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2926 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2927 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2930 You probably wrote something like this:
2934 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2935 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2939 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2941 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2942 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2943 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2944 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2946 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
2948 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
2949 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
2950 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
2951 to the array you apparently lost track of.
2953 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2955 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2956 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2958 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2960 (D deprecated) You have written something like this:
2964 use attrs qw(locked);
2967 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2973 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2974 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2976 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2978 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2982 is now misinterpreted as
2986 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2987 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2988 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2991 =item Premature end of script headers
2995 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2997 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2998 before now. Check your control flow.
3000 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3002 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3003 before now. Check your control flow.
3005 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3007 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3008 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3009 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3010 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3013 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3015 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3016 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3018 =item Prototype not terminated
3020 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3023 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex;
3025 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3027 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3028 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3029 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3031 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression;
3033 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3035 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3036 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3037 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3038 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3039 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3041 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3044 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3046 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3047 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3048 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3049 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3051 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3053 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3054 before now. Check your control flow.
3056 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
3058 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3060 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3062 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3065 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3067 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3068 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3069 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3071 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3073 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
3074 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
3076 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3078 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3079 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3082 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3084 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3085 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3086 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3087 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3089 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3090 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3091 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3092 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3094 =item Reference is already weak
3096 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3097 Doing so has no effect.
3099 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3101 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3102 a reference count of other than 1.
3104 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex;
3106 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3108 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3109 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3110 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3111 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
3113 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3116 =item regexp memory corruption
3118 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3119 expression compiler gave it.
3121 =item Regexp out of space
3123 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3126 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
3128 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3129 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3131 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
3133 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3134 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
3136 =item Reversed %s= operator
3138 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3139 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3141 =item Runaway format
3143 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3144 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3145 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3146 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3147 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3149 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3151 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3152 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3153 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3154 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3155 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3156 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3157 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3159 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3160 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3161 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3164 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3166 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3167 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3168 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3169 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3170 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3171 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3172 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3174 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3175 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3176 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3179 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3181 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3182 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3183 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3184 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3186 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3188 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3189 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
3191 =item Search pattern not terminated
3193 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3194 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3195 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3197 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3199 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3200 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3202 =item select not implemented
3204 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3206 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3208 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3209 the current implementation.
3211 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3213 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3214 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3216 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3218 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3219 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3221 =item sem%s not implemented
3223 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3225 =item send() on closed socket %s
3227 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3228 before now. Check your control flow.
3230 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3232 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3233 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3236 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex;
3238 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3240 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3241 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3242 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3245 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex;
3247 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3249 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3250 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3251 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3253 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex;
3255 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3257 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3258 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3259 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3261 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex;
3263 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3265 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3266 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3267 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3270 =item 500 Server error
3276 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3277 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3278 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3279 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3280 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3281 produce a valid header".
3283 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3285 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3286 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3287 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3288 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3289 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3290 Please see the following for more information:
3292 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3293 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3294 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
3296 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3298 =item setegid() not implemented
3300 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3301 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3304 =item seteuid() not implemented
3306 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3307 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3310 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3312 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3313 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3316 =item setrgid() not implemented
3318 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3319 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3322 =item setruid() not implemented
3324 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3325 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3328 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3330 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3331 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3332 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3334 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3336 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3337 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3339 =item shm%s not implemented
3341 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3343 =item <> should be quotes
3345 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3348 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3350 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3351 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3352 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3353 probably not what you had in mind.
3355 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3357 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3360 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3362 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3363 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3365 =item sort is now a reserved word
3367 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3368 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3370 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3372 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3373 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3374 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3376 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3378 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3379 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3381 =item splice() offset past end of array
3383 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
3384 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
3385 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
3386 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
3391 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3392 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3393 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3395 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3397 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3398 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3399 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3400 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3403 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3405 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3406 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3408 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3410 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3411 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3412 C<can> may break this.
3414 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3416 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3419 no warnings 'redefine';
3420 eval "sub name { ... }";
3423 =item Substitution loop
3425 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3426 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3427 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3428 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3430 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3432 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3433 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3434 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3436 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3438 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3439 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3440 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3442 =item substr outside of string
3444 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3445 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3446 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3447 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3448 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3450 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3452 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3453 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3455 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex;
3457 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3459 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3460 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3461 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3462 clustering parentheses:
3464 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3466 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3467 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3469 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex;
3471 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3473 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3474 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3475 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3477 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3479 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3480 and effective uids or gids.
3484 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3486 A keyword is misspelled.
3487 A semicolon is missing.
3489 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3490 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3491 A closing quote is missing.
3493 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3494 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3495 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3496 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3497 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3498 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3499 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3500 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3501 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3504 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3506 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3507 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3510 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
3512 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
3513 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
3514 or "my $var" or "our $var".
3518 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3520 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3522 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3523 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3524 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3525 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3527 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3529 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3530 before now. Check your control flow.
3532 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3534 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3535 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3537 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3539 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3540 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3542 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3544 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3545 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3554 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3555 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3557 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3559 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3560 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3561 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3562 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3565 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3567 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3568 to the probings of Configure.
3570 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3572 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3573 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3574 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3577 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3579 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3581 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3582 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3583 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3584 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3585 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3586 target of the change to
3587 %ENV which produced the warning.
3589 =item times not implemented
3591 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3592 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3594 =item Too few args to syscall
3596 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3597 system call to call, silly dilly.
3599 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3601 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3602 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3603 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3604 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3607 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3608 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3609 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3610 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3612 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3613 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3615 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3617 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3618 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3619 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3621 =item Too late to run %s block
3623 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3624 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3625 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3626 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3629 =item Too many args to syscall
3631 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3633 =item Too many arguments for %s
3635 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3641 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3642 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3644 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
3646 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3647 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3649 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3651 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3652 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3653 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3655 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3657 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3660 =item truncate not implemented
3662 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3663 Configure knows about.
3665 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3667 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3668 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3669 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3670 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3672 =item umask not implemented
3674 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3675 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3677 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3679 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3681 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3683 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3684 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3686 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3688 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3689 many values were temporarily localized.
3691 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3693 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3694 many blocks were entered and left.
3696 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3698 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3699 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3701 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3703 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3704 another package? See L<perlform>.
3706 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3708 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3709 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3711 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3713 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3714 since been undefined.
3716 =item Undefined subroutine called
3718 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3719 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3721 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3723 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3724 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3726 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3728 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3729 another package? See L<perlform>.
3731 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3733 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3734 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3737 =item %s: Undefined variable
3739 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3740 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3742 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3744 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3745 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3747 =item Unicode character %s is illegal
3749 (W utf8) Certain Unicode characters have been designated off-limits by
3750 the Unicode standard and should not be generated. If you really know
3751 what you are doing you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
3753 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3755 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3758 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
3760 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
3762 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex;
3764 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3766 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
3767 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
3768 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
3769 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
3770 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
3773 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3774 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3776 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3778 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3779 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3780 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
3782 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3784 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3785 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3786 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3787 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3789 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
3791 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
3792 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
3794 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
3795 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
3798 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3800 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3801 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3802 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
3803 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3805 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3807 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3808 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3809 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3810 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3812 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3814 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3815 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3816 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3817 you were last editing.
3819 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3821 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3822 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3823 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3826 =item Unrecognized character %s
3828 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3829 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3830 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3832 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3834 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3835 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3836 understood literally.
3838 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex;
3840 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3842 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3843 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
3844 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
3845 literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3846 escape was discovered.
3848 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3850 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3853 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3855 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3856 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3859 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3861 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3862 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3863 bad switch on your behalf.)
3865 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3867 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3868 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3869 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3871 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3873 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3875 =item Unsupported function %s
3877 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3878 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3880 =item Unsupported function fork
3882 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3884 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3885 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3886 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3888 =item Unsupported script encoding
3890 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3891 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3893 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3895 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3896 least that's what Configure thought.
3898 =item Unterminated attribute list
3900 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3901 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3902 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3903 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3905 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3907 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3908 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3909 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3910 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3912 =item Unterminated compressed integer
3914 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3915 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3916 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3918 =item Unterminated <> operator
3920 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3921 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3922 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3923 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3925 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3927 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3928 still valid when C<untie> was called.
3930 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex;
3932 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3934 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
3935 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
3937 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
3941 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
3943 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3944 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3946 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex;
3948 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3950 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
3951 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
3953 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
3957 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
3959 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3960 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3962 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3964 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3965 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3966 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3967 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3968 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3969 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3974 when you meant to say
3976 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3978 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3979 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3984 when you should have said
3988 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3989 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3990 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3991 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3992 L<perlref> for more on this.
3994 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
3995 since they are often used in statements like
3997 1 while sub_with_side_effects() ;
3999 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4002 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
4004 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4006 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4008 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4012 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4014 =item Useless use of %s with no values
4016 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
4017 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4018 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4019 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4020 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4021 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4023 =item "use" not allowed in expression
4025 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4026 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4028 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4030 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
4031 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4033 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4035 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4036 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4038 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4040 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4041 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4042 used. (This may change in the future.)
4044 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
4046 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4047 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4048 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
4050 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4052 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4053 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4055 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4057 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4058 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4059 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4062 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4063 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4065 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
4067 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
4068 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
4069 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
4071 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4073 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4074 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4075 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4076 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4079 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4080 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4081 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4082 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4085 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
4086 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4087 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4088 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4091 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4092 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
4093 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
4095 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4097 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4098 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4099 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4101 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4103 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4104 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4105 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4108 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4110 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4111 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4113 =item Use of $* is deprecated
4115 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
4116 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
4117 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
4118 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
4120 =item Use of %s is deprecated
4122 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
4123 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4124 old way has bad side effects.
4126 =item Use of $# is deprecated
4128 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
4129 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
4131 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
4133 (W) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
4134 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4135 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
4137 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
4138 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4139 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
4140 operators and then you assumedly know what you are doing.
4142 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4144 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4145 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4146 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4147 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4148 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4149 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
4151 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
4153 (W taint) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
4154 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
4155 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
4156 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
4158 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
4160 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
4161 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
4162 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
4164 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
4165 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
4166 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
4167 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
4168 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
4169 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
4172 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
4174 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
4175 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
4176 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
4177 be removed in a future version.
4179 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
4181 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
4182 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
4183 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
4184 removed in a future version.
4186 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
4188 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of an UTF-16 surrogate by
4189 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
4190 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
4191 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
4192 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
4193 character. If you really know what you are doing you can turn off
4194 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4196 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
4198 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
4199 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
4200 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
4201 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
4202 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
4203 C<defined> operator.
4205 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
4207 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
4208 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
4209 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
4212 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
4214 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
4215 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
4216 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
4217 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
4218 front of your variable.
4220 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
4222 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
4223 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
4224 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
4225 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
4226 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
4228 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
4230 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
4231 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
4232 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
4233 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
4235 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
4237 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
4238 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
4239 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
4240 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
4241 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
4242 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
4244 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
4245 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
4246 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
4247 between interferes with this feature.
4249 =item Variable syntax
4251 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4252 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4255 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4257 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
4258 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
4260 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
4261 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4262 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4263 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4264 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4265 variable will no longer be shared.
4267 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
4268 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
4269 will I<never> share the given variable.
4271 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4272 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
4273 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
4274 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
4276 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex;
4278 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4280 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
4281 known at compile time. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4282 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4284 =item Version number must be a constant number
4286 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4287 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4290 =item v-string in use/require is non-portable
4292 (W) The use of v-strings is non-portable to older, pre-5.6, Perls.
4293 If you want your scripts to be backward portable, use the floating
4294 point version number: for example, instead of C<use 5.6.1> say
4295 C<use 5.006_001>. This of course won't help: the older Perls
4296 won't suddenly start understanding newer features, but at least
4297 they will show a sensible error message indicating the required
4300 =item Warning: something's wrong
4302 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
4303 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
4305 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
4307 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4308 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4311 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
4313 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4314 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4315 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4316 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
4320 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4324 but in actual fact, you got
4328 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
4330 =item Wide character in %s
4332 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
4333 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print) but can be
4334 turned off by C<no warnings 'utf8';>. You are supposed to explicitly
4335 mark the filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4337 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
4339 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4340 before now. Check your control flow.
4342 =item X outside of string
4344 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
4345 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4347 =item x outside of string
4349 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
4350 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4352 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
4354 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4357 =item Xsub called in sort
4359 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4362 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
4364 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
4365 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
4366 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
4369 =item You need to quote "%s"
4371 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
4372 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
4373 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
4374 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
4375 what you want, put an & in front.)