3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
24 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
25 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
26 The symbols C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
30 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
32 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34 if you want to localize a package variable.
36 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
38 (W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
39 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
40 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
41 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
44 =item "no" not allowed in expression
46 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
49 =item "use" not allowed in expression
51 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
54 =item % may only be used in unpack
56 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
57 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
58 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
60 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
62 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
63 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
64 C<'>-delimited regular expression.
66 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
68 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
69 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
70 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
72 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
74 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
79 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
81 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
86 or a hash slice, such as
88 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
89 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
91 =item %s did not return a true value
93 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
94 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
95 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
96 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
98 =item %s found where operator expected
100 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
101 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
102 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
103 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
105 =item %s had compilation errors
107 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
109 =item %s has too many errors
111 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
112 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
114 =item %s matches null string many times
116 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
117 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
119 =item %s never introduced
121 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
122 before it could possibly have been used.
126 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
128 =item %s: Command not found
130 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
131 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
134 =item %s: Expression syntax
136 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
137 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
140 =item %s: Undefined variable
142 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
143 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
148 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
149 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
152 =item (in cleanup) %s
154 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
155 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
156 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
157 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
158 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
161 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
162 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
164 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
166 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
167 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
168 the previous line just because you saw this message.
170 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
172 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
173 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
175 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
177 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
178 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
180 =item C<-p> destination: %s
182 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
183 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
184 redirected it with select().)
186 =item 500 Server error
190 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
192 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
193 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
195 =item @ outside of string
197 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
198 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
200 =item accept() on closed fd
202 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
203 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
205 =item Allocation too large: %lx
207 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
209 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
211 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
212 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
213 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
214 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
215 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
216 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
218 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
220 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
222 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
224 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
225 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
226 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
228 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
230 (W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
231 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
232 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
235 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
236 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
237 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
238 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
240 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
241 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
242 to be an object method (see L<attrs>).
244 =item Args must match #! line
246 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
247 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
248 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
249 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
251 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
253 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
254 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
255 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
257 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
259 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
260 is now heavily deprecated.
262 =item assertion botched: %s
264 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
266 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
268 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
270 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
272 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
273 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
274 know which context to supply to the right side.
276 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
278 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
279 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
282 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
284 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
285 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
286 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
287 that can no longer be found in the table.
289 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
291 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
292 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
293 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
294 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
297 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
299 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
301 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
303 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
304 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
305 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
306 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
307 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
308 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
310 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
312 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
313 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
314 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
315 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
316 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
319 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
321 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
322 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
323 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
325 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
327 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
328 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
329 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
330 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
332 =item Bad filehandle: %s
334 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
335 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
336 did it in another package.
338 =item Bad free() ignored
340 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
341 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
342 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
344 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
345 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
346 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
351 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
353 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
355 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
356 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
359 =item Bad name after %s::
361 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
362 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
371 $sym = "mypack::$var";
373 =item Bad symbol for array
375 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
376 wasn't a symbol table entry.
378 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
380 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
381 wasn't a symbol table entry.
383 =item Bad symbol for hash
385 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
386 wasn't a symbol table entry.
388 =item Badly placed ()'s
390 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
391 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
394 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
396 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
397 subroutine identifier, in curly braces or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
398 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
400 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
402 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
403 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
404 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
406 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
408 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
409 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
411 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
413 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
414 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
415 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
416 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
417 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
419 =item bind() on closed fd
421 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
422 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
424 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
426 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
428 =item Callback called exit
430 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
431 exited by calling exit.
433 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
435 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
436 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
437 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
438 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
440 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
442 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
443 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
445 =item Can't "last" outside a block
447 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
448 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
449 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
450 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
451 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
452 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
454 =item Can't "next" outside a block
456 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
457 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
458 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
459 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
460 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
462 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
464 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
465 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
466 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
467 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
468 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
470 =item Can't bless non-reference value
472 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
473 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
475 =item Can't break at that line
477 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
478 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
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 unblessed reference
489 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
490 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
491 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
492 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
494 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
496 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
497 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
498 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
499 Something like this will reproduce the error:
502 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
503 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
505 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
507 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
508 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
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 coerce %s to integer in %s
522 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
523 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
533 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
535 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
537 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
538 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
540 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
542 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
543 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
545 =item Can't coerce array into hash
547 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
548 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
549 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
551 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
553 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
554 or other plumbing problems.
556 =item Can't declare %s in my
558 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
559 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
561 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
563 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
565 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
567 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
568 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
571 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
573 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
575 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
577 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
578 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
580 =item Can't do setegid!
582 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
585 =item Can't do seteuid!
587 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
589 =item Can't do setuid
591 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
592 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
593 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
594 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
595 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
596 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
598 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
600 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
601 without flags is emulated.
603 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
605 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
606 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
608 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
610 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
611 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
613 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
615 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
616 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
617 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
618 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
619 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
620 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
624 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
625 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
626 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
628 =item Can't execute %s
630 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
631 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
633 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
635 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
636 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
637 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
639 =item Can't find %s on PATH
641 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
644 =item Can't find label %s
646 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
647 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
649 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
651 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
652 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
653 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
655 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
657 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
658 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
659 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
663 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
665 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
667 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
668 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
669 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
670 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
671 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
672 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
673 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
674 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
675 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
676 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
677 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
678 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
679 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
680 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
682 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
684 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
685 can't retrieve its name for later use.
687 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
689 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
690 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
692 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
694 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
695 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
696 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
699 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
701 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
702 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
704 =item Can't localize through a reference
706 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
707 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
708 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
709 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
711 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
713 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
714 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
715 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
718 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
720 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
721 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
722 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
723 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
725 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
727 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
728 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
729 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
730 doing C<make install>.
732 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
734 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
735 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set the
736 PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra library
737 is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
738 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
740 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
742 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
743 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
744 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
746 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
748 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
751 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
753 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
755 =item Can't modify %s in %s
757 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
758 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
760 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
762 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
765 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
767 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
770 =item Can't open %s: %s
772 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
773 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
774 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
775 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
778 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
780 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
781 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
782 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
783 and then read it in under a different file handle.
785 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
787 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
788 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
789 command line for writing.
791 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
793 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
794 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
796 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
798 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
799 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
802 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
804 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
805 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
807 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
809 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
811 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
813 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
814 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
815 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
816 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
818 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
820 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
821 you don't have write permission to the directory.
823 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
825 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
826 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
828 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
830 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
833 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
835 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
836 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
838 =item Can't stat script "%s"
840 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
841 it open already. Bizarre.
843 =item Can't swap uid and euid
845 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
848 =item Can't take log of %g
850 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
851 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
852 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
853 the negative numbers.
855 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
857 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
858 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
859 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
861 =item Can't undef active subroutine
863 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
864 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
865 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
869 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
870 as the main Perl stack.
872 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
874 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
875 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
876 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
877 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
879 =item Can't upgrade to undef
881 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
882 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
883 code calling sv_upgrade.
885 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
887 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
888 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
889 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
891 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
893 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
894 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
895 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
896 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
899 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
901 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
903 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
905 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
906 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
907 test the type of the reference, if need be.
909 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
911 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
912 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
913 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
914 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
915 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
917 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
919 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
920 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
922 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
924 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
925 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
927 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
929 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
930 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
932 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
934 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
935 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
936 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
937 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
940 =item Can't use subscript on %s
942 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
943 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
944 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
946 =item Can't x= to read-only value
948 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
949 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
950 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
952 =item Cannot find an opnumber for "%s"
954 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
955 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
957 =item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
959 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
960 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
961 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
963 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
965 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
966 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
967 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
968 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
969 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
971 =item Character class syntax [: :] is reserved for future extensions
973 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
974 with "[:" and ending with ":]" is reserved for future extensions.
975 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
976 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
977 backslash: "\[:" and ":\]".
979 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
981 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
982 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
983 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
984 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
985 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
987 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
989 (W) A novice will sometimes say
993 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
994 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
996 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
998 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1000 =item Compilation failed in require
1002 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1003 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1004 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1006 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1008 (W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1009 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1010 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1011 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1012 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1013 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1014 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1015 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1016 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1018 =item connect() on closed fd
1020 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1021 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1023 =item Constant is not %s reference
1025 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1026 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1027 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1028 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1029 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1031 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1033 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1034 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1037 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1039 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1040 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1043 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1045 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1047 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1049 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1051 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1053 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1054 expression compiler gave it.
1056 =item corrupted regexp program
1058 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1059 a valid magic number.
1061 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1063 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1064 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1065 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1066 case it indicates something else.
1068 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1070 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1071 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1072 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1074 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1076 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1078 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1080 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1081 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1085 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1086 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1088 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1090 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1091 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1092 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1093 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1094 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1095 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1096 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1097 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1100 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1102 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1104 =item do_study: out of memory
1106 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1108 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1110 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1113 =item elseif should be elsif
1115 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1116 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1117 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1118 unlikely to be what you want.
1120 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
1122 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1123 The interpreter is immediately exited.
1125 =item entering effective %s failed
1127 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1128 effective uids or gids failed.
1130 =item Error converting file specification %s
1132 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1133 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1134 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1135 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1136 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1138 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1140 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1141 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1142 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1144 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1146 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1147 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1148 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1150 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1152 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1153 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1154 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1155 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1156 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1157 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1159 =item Excessively long <> operator
1161 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1162 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1163 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1164 variable and glob that.
1166 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1168 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1170 =item Exiting eval via %s
1172 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1173 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1175 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1177 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1178 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1179 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1181 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1183 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1184 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1186 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1188 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1189 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1191 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1193 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1194 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1195 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1196 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1198 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1200 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1201 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1202 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1203 the Perl source code is distressed.
1205 =item fcntl is not implemented
1207 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1208 PDP-11 or something?
1210 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1212 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1213 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1214 the FileHandle package.
1216 =item Filehandle %s opened for only input
1218 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1219 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1220 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1221 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1224 =item Filehandle opened for only input
1226 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1227 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1228 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1229 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1232 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1234 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1235 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1236 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1239 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1241 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1242 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1243 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1246 =item Format %s redefined
1248 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1252 eval "format NAME =...";
1255 =item Format not terminated
1257 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1258 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1260 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1270 (or something like that).
1272 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1274 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1276 =item gethostent not implemented
1278 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1279 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1282 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1284 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1285 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1287 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1289 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1290 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1292 =item Glob not terminated
1294 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1295 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1296 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1297 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1299 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1301 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1302 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1303 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1305 =item goto must have label
1307 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1308 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1310 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1312 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1313 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1314 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1316 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1318 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1319 is now heavily deprecated.
1321 =item Identifier too long
1323 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1324 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1325 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1326 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1328 =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
1330 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
1331 to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
1332 names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
1333 appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
1334 might directly modify logical name tables and introduce nonstandard names,
1335 or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
1337 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1339 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1340 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1341 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1343 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1344 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1345 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1346 properly converting the text file format.
1348 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1349 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1350 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1352 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1353 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1356 =item Illegal division by zero
1358 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1359 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1361 =item Illegal modulus zero
1363 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1364 don't take to this kindly.
1366 =item Illegal octal digit
1368 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1370 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
1372 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1373 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1375 =item Illegal hex digit ignored
1377 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F in a
1378 hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1379 before the illegal character.
1381 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1383 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1384 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1386 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1388 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1389 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1390 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1391 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1392 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1393 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1394 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1396 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1398 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1399 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1400 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1401 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1402 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1403 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1404 for more information.
1406 =item Insecure directory in %s
1408 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1409 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1412 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1414 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1415 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1416 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1417 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1418 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1420 =item Integer overflow in hex number
1422 (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
1423 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
1426 =item Integer overflow in octal number
1428 (S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
1429 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
1432 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1434 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1435 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1436 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1437 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1438 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1439 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1440 and execute the specified command.
1442 =item internal disaster in regexp
1444 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1446 =item glob failed (%s)
1448 (W) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1449 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1450 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1451 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1452 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1453 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1454 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1455 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1456 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1457 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1460 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1462 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1464 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1466 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1467 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1469 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1471 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1472 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1474 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1476 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1477 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1480 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1482 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1483 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1486 =item ioctl is not implemented
1488 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1489 strange for a machine that supports C.
1491 =item junk on end of regexp
1493 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1495 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1497 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1498 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1499 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1501 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1503 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1504 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1507 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1509 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1510 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1513 =item leaving effective %s failed
1515 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1516 effective uids or gids failed.
1518 =item listen() on closed fd
1520 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1521 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1523 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1525 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1526 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1528 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1530 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1531 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1532 ended earlier on the current line.
1534 =item Misplaced _ in number
1536 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1538 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1540 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1541 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1542 one line to the next.
1544 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1546 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1547 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1549 =item Missing command in piped open
1551 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1552 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1554 =item Missing operator before %s?
1556 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1557 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1559 =item Missing right bracket
1561 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1562 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1565 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1567 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1568 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1569 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1571 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1574 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1576 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1578 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1579 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1582 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1584 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1585 be created for some peculiar reason.
1587 =item Module name must be constant
1589 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1591 =item msg%s not implemented
1593 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1595 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1597 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1598 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1600 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1602 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1603 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1604 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
1605 provided for just this purpose.
1607 =item Negative length
1609 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1610 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1612 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1614 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1615 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1617 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1618 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1622 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1623 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1625 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1627 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1628 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1629 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1632 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1634 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1636 =item No comma allowed after %s
1638 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1639 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1640 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1642 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1643 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1644 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1645 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1646 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1647 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1648 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1649 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1650 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1651 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1652 this error was triggered?
1654 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1656 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1657 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1658 want to pipe the output from this command.
1660 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1662 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1663 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1664 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1665 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1666 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1669 =item No dbm on this machine
1671 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1672 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1674 =item No DBsub routine
1676 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1677 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1678 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1679 ordinary subroutine call.
1681 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1683 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1684 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1685 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1687 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1689 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1690 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1691 from which to read data for stdin.
1693 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1695 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1696 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1697 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1699 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1701 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1702 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1703 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1705 =item No Perl script found in input
1707 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1708 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1710 =item No setregid available
1712 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1715 =item No setreuid available
1717 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1720 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1722 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1725 =item No such array field
1727 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
1728 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
1729 array indices for that to work.
1731 =item No such field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
1733 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
1734 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
1735 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
1736 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
1738 =item No such pipe open
1740 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1741 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1742 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1744 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1746 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1747 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1749 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
1751 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Per was unable to find the local
1752 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
1753 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
1754 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
1757 =item Not a CODE reference
1759 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1760 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1761 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1762 See also L<perlref>.
1764 =item Not a format reference
1766 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1767 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1769 =item Not a GLOB reference
1771 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1772 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1773 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1774 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1776 =item Not a HASH reference
1778 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1779 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1780 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1782 =item Not a perl script
1784 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1785 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1788 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1790 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1791 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1792 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1794 =item Not a subroutine reference
1796 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1797 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1798 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1799 See also L<perlref>.
1801 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1803 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1804 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1806 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1808 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1809 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1810 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1812 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1814 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1816 =item Not enough format arguments
1818 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1821 =item Null filename used
1823 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1824 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1826 =item Null picture in formline
1828 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1829 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1830 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1832 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1834 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1838 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1840 =item NULL regexp argument
1842 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1844 =item NULL regexp parameter
1846 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1848 =item Number too long
1850 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
1851 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
1852 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
1853 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
1855 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
1857 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
1858 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
1860 =item Offset outside string
1862 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1863 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1864 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1865 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1869 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1873 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1875 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
1877 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1878 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1879 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1880 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1881 true. See L<overload>.
1883 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1885 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1886 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1887 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1888 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1889 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1891 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1893 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1894 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1896 =item Out of memory during request for %s
1898 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1899 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1901 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1902 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1903 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1904 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
1905 error is trappable I<once>.
1907 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
1909 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1910 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1911 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1912 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1914 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
1916 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
1917 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
1918 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1922 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1925 =item panic: ck_grep
1927 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1929 =item panic: ck_split
1931 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1933 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1935 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1936 are in the savestack.
1940 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1941 it wasn't an eval context.
1943 =item panic: do_match
1945 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1947 =item panic: do_split
1949 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1951 =item panic: do_subst
1953 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1955 =item panic: do_trans
1957 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1961 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
1965 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1966 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1968 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1970 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1972 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1974 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1978 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1979 it wasn't a block context.
1981 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1983 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
1985 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1987 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1988 invalid enum on the top of it.
1992 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1994 =item panic: mapstart
1996 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1998 =item panic: null array
2000 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2002 =item panic: pad_alloc
2004 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2005 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2007 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2009 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2010 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2012 =item panic: pad_free po
2014 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2016 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2018 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2019 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2021 =item panic: pad_sv po
2023 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2025 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2027 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2028 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2030 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2032 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2034 =item panic: pp_iter
2036 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2038 =item panic: realloc
2040 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2042 =item panic: restartop
2044 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2045 didn't supply the destination.
2049 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2050 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2052 =item panic: scan_num
2054 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2056 =item panic: sv_insert
2058 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2061 =item panic: top_env
2063 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2067 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2069 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2071 (W) You said something like
2077 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2079 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2081 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2083 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2084 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2085 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2087 =item Permission denied
2089 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2091 =item pid %x not a child
2093 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2094 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2095 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2097 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2099 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2100 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2102 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2104 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2105 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2106 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2107 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2109 You probably wrote something like this:
2116 when you should have written this:
2123 If you really want comments, build your list the
2124 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2128 'b', # another comment
2131 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2133 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2134 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2135 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2138 You probably wrote something like this:
2142 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2143 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2147 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2149 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2150 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2151 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2152 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2154 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2156 (S) The old irregular construct
2160 is now misinterpreted as
2164 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2165 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2166 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2169 =item print on closed filehandle %s
2171 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2172 Check your logic flow.
2174 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
2176 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2177 Check your logic flow.
2179 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2181 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2182 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2183 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2187 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2189 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2190 or defined with a different function prototype.
2192 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2194 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2195 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2196 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2197 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2199 =item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
2201 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2202 Check your logic flow.
2204 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2206 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2208 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2210 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2211 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2212 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2214 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2216 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2217 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2219 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2221 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2222 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2224 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2226 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2227 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2228 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2229 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2231 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2232 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2233 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2234 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2236 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2238 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2239 reference count of other than 1.
2241 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2243 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2244 could match an empty string.
2246 =item regexp memory corruption
2248 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2249 expression compiler gave it.
2251 =item regexp out of space
2253 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2255 =item Reversed %s= operator
2257 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2258 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2260 =item Runaway format
2262 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2263 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2264 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2265 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2266 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2268 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2270 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2271 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2272 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2273 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2274 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2275 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2277 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2278 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2279 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2282 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2284 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2285 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2286 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2287 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2288 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2289 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2291 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2292 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2293 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2296 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2298 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2299 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2301 =item Search pattern not terminated
2303 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2304 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2305 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2307 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2309 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2310 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2312 =item select not implemented
2314 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2316 =item sem%s not implemented
2318 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2320 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2322 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2323 that had previously been marked as free.
2325 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2327 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2328 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2330 =item Send on closed socket
2332 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2333 Check your logic flow.
2335 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2337 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2340 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2342 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2343 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2345 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2347 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2348 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2350 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2352 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2357 Also known as "500 Server error".
2359 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2361 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2362 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2363 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2364 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2365 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2366 for more information:
2368 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/idiots-guide.html
2369 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/perl-cgi-faq.html
2370 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2371 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2372 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2374 =item setegid() not implemented
2376 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2377 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2380 =item seteuid() not implemented
2382 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2383 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2386 =item setrgid() not implemented
2388 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2389 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2392 =item setruid() not implemented
2394 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2395 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2398 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2400 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2401 because the world might have written on it already.
2403 =item shm%s not implemented
2405 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2407 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2409 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2411 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2413 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2414 put it into the wrong package?
2416 =item sort is now a reserved word
2418 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2419 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2421 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2423 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2424 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2425 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2427 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2429 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2430 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2434 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2435 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2436 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2438 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2440 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2441 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2443 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2445 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2446 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2447 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2448 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2451 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2453 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2454 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2455 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2456 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2457 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2459 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2461 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2462 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2465 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2467 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2471 eval "sub name { ... }";
2474 =item Substitution loop
2476 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2477 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2478 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2479 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2481 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2483 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2484 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2485 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2487 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2489 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2490 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2491 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2493 =item substr outside of string
2495 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2496 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2497 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2498 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2499 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2501 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2503 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2504 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2506 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2508 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2509 real and effective uids or gids.
2513 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2515 A keyword is misspelled.
2516 A semicolon is missing.
2518 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2519 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2520 A closing quote is missing.
2522 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2523 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2524 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2525 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2526 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2527 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2528 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2529 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2530 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2532 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2534 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2535 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2538 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2540 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2541 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2542 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2543 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2545 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2547 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2548 Check your logic flow.
2550 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2552 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2553 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2555 =item tell() on unopened file
2557 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2558 never opened or has since been closed.
2560 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2562 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2563 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2565 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2567 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2568 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2577 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2578 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2580 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2582 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2583 to the probings of Configure.
2585 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2587 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2588 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2589 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2590 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2593 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2595 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2596 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2597 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2599 =item times not implemented
2601 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2602 you're not running on Unix.
2604 =item Too few args to syscall
2606 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2607 system call to call, silly dilly.
2609 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2611 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2612 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2613 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2614 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2617 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2618 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2619 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2620 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2622 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2623 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2625 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2627 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2628 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2629 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2635 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2636 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2639 =item Too many args to syscall
2641 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2643 =item Too many arguments for %s
2645 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2647 =item trailing \ in regexp
2649 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2652 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
2654 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2655 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
2656 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
2658 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
2660 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2663 =item truncate not implemented
2665 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2666 Configure knows about.
2668 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2670 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2671 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2672 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2673 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2675 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2677 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
2678 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2680 =item umask not implemented
2682 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
2683 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
2685 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2687 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2689 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2691 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2692 contexts were entered and left.
2694 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2696 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2697 values were temporarily localized.
2699 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2701 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2702 were entered and left.
2704 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2706 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2707 scalars were allocated and freed.
2709 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2711 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2712 another package? See L<perlform>.
2714 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2716 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2717 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2719 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2721 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2722 has since been undefined.
2724 =item Undefined subroutine called
2726 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2727 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2729 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2731 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2732 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2734 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2736 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2737 another package? See L<perlform>.
2739 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
2741 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
2742 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
2744 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2746 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2747 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2749 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2751 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2753 =item unmatched () in regexp
2755 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2756 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2757 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2759 =item Unmatched right bracket
2761 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2762 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2763 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2766 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2768 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2769 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2772 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2774 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2775 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2776 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2778 =item Unrecognized character %s
2780 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
2781 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
2782 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
2784 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
2786 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
2789 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2791 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2792 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2794 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
2796 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2797 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2798 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2800 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2802 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2803 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2804 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
2806 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2808 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2810 =item Unsupported function fork
2812 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
2814 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
2815 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
2816 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
2818 =item Unsupported function %s
2820 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2821 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2823 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2825 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2826 least that's what Configure thought.
2828 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
2830 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2831 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2832 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2833 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2835 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2837 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
2838 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2840 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2842 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
2843 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2844 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2845 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2847 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2849 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2850 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2852 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
2854 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2855 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
2857 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2859 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2860 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2861 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2863 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
2865 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
2866 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
2867 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
2868 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
2870 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
2871 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
2872 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
2873 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
2874 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
2876 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
2877 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
2878 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
2879 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
2881 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
2882 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
2883 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
2885 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
2887 (D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
2888 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
2889 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
2890 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
2891 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
2892 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
2894 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2896 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2897 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2900 =item Use of uninitialized value
2902 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2903 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2904 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2906 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
2908 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
2910 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2912 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2913 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2914 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2915 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2916 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2917 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2921 when you meant to say
2923 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2925 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2926 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2931 when you should have said
2935 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2936 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2937 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2938 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2939 L<perlref> for more on this.
2941 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
2943 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
2944 valid when C<untie> was called.
2946 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
2948 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
2949 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
2950 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
2951 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
2952 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
2954 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
2956 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2957 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2958 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2959 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2960 on the front of your variable.
2962 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
2964 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
2965 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
2966 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
2967 the outermost subroutine. For example:
2969 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
2971 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
2972 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
2973 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
2974 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
2975 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
2976 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
2979 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
2980 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
2981 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
2982 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
2984 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
2986 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
2987 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
2989 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
2990 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
2991 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
2992 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
2993 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
2994 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
2996 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
2997 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
2998 will I<never> share the given variable.
3000 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3001 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3002 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3003 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3006 =item Variable syntax
3008 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3009 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3012 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3014 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3016 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3017 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3020 are supported and installed on your system.
3021 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3023 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3024 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3025 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3026 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3027 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3028 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3029 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3030 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3031 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3033 =item Warning: something's wrong
3035 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3036 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3038 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3040 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3041 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3043 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3045 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3046 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3047 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3048 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3052 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3056 but in actual fact, you got
3060 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3062 =item Write on closed filehandle
3064 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3065 Check your logic flow.
3067 =item X outside of string
3069 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3070 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3072 =item x outside of string
3074 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3075 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3077 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3079 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3081 =item Xsub called in sort
3083 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3085 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3087 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3088 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3089 Use a filename instead.
3091 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3093 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3094 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3095 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3096 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3098 =item You need to quote "%s"
3100 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3101 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3102 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3103 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3105 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
3107 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3108 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3109 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
3111 =item \1 better written as $1
3113 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3114 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3115 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3116 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3117 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3119 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3121 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3122 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3123 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3125 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3127 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3128 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3129 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3130 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3133 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3140 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3142 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3143 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3145 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3147 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3155 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3156 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3157 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3158 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3160 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3162 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3163 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3165 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3167 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3168 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3169 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3170 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"