3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (non-trappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that will be
20 called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
24 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
25 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
26 The symbols C<"%-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
30 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
32 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34 if you want to localize a package variable.
36 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope
38 (S) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectively
39 eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always
40 a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
41 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
44 =item "no" not allowed in expression
46 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
49 =item "use" not allowed in expression
51 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
54 =item % may only be used in unpack
56 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
57 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
58 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
60 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
62 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
63 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
64 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
66 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
68 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
73 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
75 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
80 or a hash slice, such as
82 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
83 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
85 =item %s did not return a true value
87 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
88 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
89 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
90 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
92 =item %s found where operator expected
94 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
95 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
96 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
97 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
99 =item %s had compilation errors
101 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
103 =item %s has too many errors
105 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
106 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
108 =item %s matches null string many times
110 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
111 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
113 =item %s never introduced
115 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
116 before it could possibly have been used.
120 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
122 =item %s: Command not found
124 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
125 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
128 =item %s: Expression syntax
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: Undefined variable
136 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
137 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
142 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
143 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
146 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
148 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
149 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
151 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
153 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
154 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
156 =item 500 Server error
160 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
162 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
163 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
165 =item @ outside of string
167 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
168 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
170 =item accept() on closed fd
172 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
173 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
175 =item Allocation too large: %lx
177 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
179 =item Allocation too large
181 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes.
183 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
185 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and translation (tr///)
186 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
187 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
188 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
189 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
190 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
192 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
194 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
196 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
198 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
199 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
200 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
202 =item Args must match #! line
204 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
205 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
206 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
207 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
209 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
211 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
212 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
213 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
215 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
217 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
218 is now heavily deprecated.
220 =item assertion botched: %s
222 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
224 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
226 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
228 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
230 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
231 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
232 know which context to supply to the right side.
234 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
236 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
237 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
240 =item Attempt to free non-existent shared string
242 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
243 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
244 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
245 that can no longer be found in the table.
247 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
249 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
250 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
251 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
252 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
255 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
257 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
259 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
261 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
262 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
263 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
264 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
265 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
266 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
268 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
270 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
271 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
272 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
274 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
276 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
277 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
278 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
279 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
281 =item Bad filehandle: %s
283 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
284 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
285 did it in another package.
287 =item Bad free() ignored
289 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
290 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
291 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
293 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
294 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
295 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
300 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
302 =item Bad name after %s::
304 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
305 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
314 $sym = "mypack::$var";
316 =item Bad symbol for array
318 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
319 wasn't a symbol table entry.
321 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
323 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
324 wasn't a symbol table entry.
326 =item Bad symbol for hash
328 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
329 wasn't a symbol table entry.
331 =item Badly placed ()'s
333 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
334 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
337 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
339 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
340 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
342 =item bind() on closed fd
344 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
345 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
347 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
349 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
351 =item Callback called exit
353 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
354 exited by calling exit.
356 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
358 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
359 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
360 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
361 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
363 =item Can't "last" outside a block
365 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
366 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
367 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
368 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
369 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
370 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
372 =item Can't "next" outside a block
374 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
375 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
376 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
377 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
378 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
380 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
382 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
383 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
384 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
385 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
386 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
388 =item Can't bless non-reference value
390 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
391 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
393 =item Can't break at that line
395 (S) A warning intended for while running within the debugger, indicating
396 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
399 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
401 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
402 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
403 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
405 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
407 (F) A method call must know what package it's supposed to run in. It
408 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
409 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
410 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
412 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
414 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
415 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
416 neither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)
417 Something like this will reproduce the error:
420 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
421 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
423 =item Can't chdir to %s
425 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
426 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
428 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
430 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
431 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
441 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
443 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
445 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
446 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
448 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
450 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
451 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
453 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
455 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
456 or other plumbing problems.
458 =item Can't declare %s in my
460 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
461 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
463 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
465 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
467 =item Can't do in-place edit without backup
469 (F) You're on a system such as MSDOS that gets confused if you try reading
470 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say B<-i>C<.bak>, or some
473 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
475 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
477 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
479 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
480 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
482 =item Can't do setegid!
484 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
487 =item Can't do seteuid!
489 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
491 =item Can't do setuid
493 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
494 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
495 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
496 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
497 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
498 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
500 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
502 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
503 without flags is emulated.
505 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
507 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
508 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
510 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
512 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
513 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
515 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
517 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
518 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
519 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
520 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
521 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
522 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
526 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
527 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
528 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
530 =item Can't execute %s
532 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
533 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions.
535 =item Can't find label %s
537 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
538 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
540 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
542 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
543 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
544 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
546 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.)
550 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
552 =item Unsupported function fork
554 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
556 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
557 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
558 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
560 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
562 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
563 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
564 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
565 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
566 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
567 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
568 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
569 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
570 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
571 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
572 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
573 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
574 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
575 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
577 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
579 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
580 can't retrieve its name for later use.
582 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
584 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
585 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
587 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
589 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
590 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
591 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
594 =item Can't localize a reference
596 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which is not allowed because
597 the compiler can't determine whether $ref will end up pointing to anything
598 with a symbol table entry, and a symbol table entry is necessary to
601 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
603 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
604 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
605 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
608 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
610 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
611 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set
612 the PERL5LIB environment variable to say where the extra library is,
613 or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
614 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
616 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
618 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
619 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
620 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
622 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
624 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
629 (F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while trying to process
630 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
632 =item Can't modify %s in %s
634 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
635 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
637 =item Can't modify non-existent substring
639 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
642 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
644 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
647 =item Can't open %s: %s
649 (S) An inplace edit couldn't open the original file for the indicated reason.
650 Usually this is because you don't have read permission for the file.
652 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
654 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
655 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
656 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
657 and then read it in under a different file handle.
659 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
661 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
662 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
663 command line for writing.
665 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
667 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
668 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
670 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
672 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
673 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
676 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
678 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
679 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
681 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
683 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
685 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
687 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
688 you don't have write permission to the directory.
690 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
692 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
693 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
695 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
697 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
700 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
702 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
703 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
705 =item Can't stat script "%s"
707 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
708 it open already. Bizarre.
710 =item Can't swap uid and euid
712 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
715 =item Can't take log of %g
717 (F) Logarithms are defined on only positive real numbers.
719 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
721 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
722 negative number. There's a Complex package available for Perl, though,
723 if you really want to do that.
725 =item Can't undef active subroutine
727 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
728 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
729 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
733 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
734 as the main Perl stack.
736 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
738 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
739 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
740 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
741 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
743 =item Can't upgrade to undef
745 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
746 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
747 code calling sv_upgrade.
749 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
751 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
752 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
753 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
754 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
757 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
759 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
761 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
763 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
764 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
765 test the type of the reference, if need be.
767 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
769 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
770 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
771 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
772 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
773 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
775 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
777 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
778 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
780 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
782 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
783 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
785 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
787 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
788 be a defined value. This helps to de-lurk some insidious errors.
790 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
792 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
793 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
794 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
795 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
798 =item Can't use subscript on %s
800 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
801 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
802 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
804 =item Can't write to temp file for B<-e>: %s
806 (F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
807 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
809 =item Can't x= to read-only value
811 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
812 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
813 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
815 =item Cannot open temporary file
817 (F) The create routine failed for some reason while trying to process
818 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
820 =item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
822 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
823 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
824 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
826 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
828 (W) A novice will sometimes say
832 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
833 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
835 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
837 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
839 =item connect() on closed fd
841 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
842 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
844 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
846 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
847 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
850 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
852 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
853 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
856 =item Copy method did not return a reference
858 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
860 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
862 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
864 =item corrupted regexp pointers
866 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
867 expression compiler gave it.
869 =item corrupted regexp program
871 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
872 a valid magic number.
874 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
876 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
877 times than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
878 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
879 case it indicates something else.
881 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
883 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
885 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
887 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
888 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
892 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
893 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
895 =item Do you need to pre-declare %s?
897 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
898 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
899 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
900 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
901 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
902 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
903 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
904 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
907 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
909 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
911 =item do_study: out of memory
913 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
915 =item Duplicate free() ignored
917 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
920 =item elseif should be elsif
922 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
923 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
924 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
925 unlikely to be what you want.
927 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
929 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
930 The interpreter is immediately exited.
932 =item Error converting file specification %s
934 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
935 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
936 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
937 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
938 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
940 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
942 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
944 =item Exiting eval via %s
946 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
947 a goto, or a loop control statement.
949 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
951 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
952 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
953 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
955 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
957 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
958 a goto, or a loop control statement.
960 =item Exiting substitution via %s
962 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
963 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
965 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
967 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
968 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
969 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
970 the Perl source code is distressed.
972 =item fcntl is not implemented
974 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
977 =item Filehandle %s never opened
979 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
980 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
981 the FileHandle package.
983 =item Filehandle %s opened for only input
985 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
986 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
987 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
988 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
991 =item Filehandle opened for only input
993 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
994 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
995 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
996 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
999 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1001 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1002 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1003 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1006 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1008 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1009 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1010 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1013 =item Format %s redefined
1015 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1019 eval "format NAME =...";
1022 =item Format not terminated
1024 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1025 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1027 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1037 (or something like that).
1039 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1041 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1043 =item gethostent not implemented
1045 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1046 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1049 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1051 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1052 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1054 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1056 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1057 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1060 =item Glob not terminated
1062 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1063 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1064 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1065 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1067 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1069 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables must
1070 either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1071 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1073 =item goto must have label
1075 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1076 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1078 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1080 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1081 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1082 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1084 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1086 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1087 is now heavily deprecated.
1089 =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
1091 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
1092 to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
1093 names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
1094 appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
1095 might directly modify logical name tables and introduce non-standard names,
1096 or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
1098 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1100 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1101 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1102 here documents (e.g. C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>). Note that Perl always
1103 opens scripts in text mode, so this error should only occur in C<eval>.
1105 =item Illegal division by zero
1107 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1108 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1110 =item Illegal modulus zero
1112 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1113 don't take to this kindly.
1115 =item Illegal octal digit
1117 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1119 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
1121 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1122 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1124 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1126 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1127 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1128 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1129 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1130 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1131 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1132 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1134 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1136 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1137 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1138 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1139 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1140 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1141 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1142 for more information.
1144 =item Insecure directory in %s
1146 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1147 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1152 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1153 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> is derived from data supplied (or
1154 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1155 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1157 =item Integer overflow in hex number
1159 (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
1160 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
1163 =item Integer overflow in octal number
1165 (S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
1166 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
1169 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1171 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1172 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1173 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1174 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
1175 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1176 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1177 and execute the specified command.
1179 =item internal disaster in regexp
1181 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1183 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1185 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1187 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1189 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1190 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1192 =item ioctl is not implemented
1194 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1195 strange for a machine that supports C.
1197 =item junk on end of regexp
1199 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1201 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1203 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1204 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1205 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1207 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1209 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1210 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1213 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1215 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1216 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1219 =item listen() on closed fd
1221 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1222 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1224 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1226 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1227 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1229 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1231 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1232 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1233 ended earlier on the current line.
1235 =item Misplaced _ in number
1237 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1239 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1241 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1242 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1243 one line to the next.
1245 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1247 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1248 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1250 =item Missing operator before %s?
1252 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1253 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1255 =item Missing right bracket
1257 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1258 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1261 =item Missing semicolon on previous line?
1263 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1264 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1265 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1267 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1269 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1270 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1271 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1273 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1276 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1278 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1280 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1281 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1284 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1286 (F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1287 be created for some peculiar reason.
1289 =item Module name must be constant
1291 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1293 =item msg%s not implemented
1295 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1297 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1299 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1300 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1302 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1304 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names. If you
1305 had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1306 again somehow to suppress the message (the C<use vars> pragma is
1307 provided for just this purpose).
1309 =item Negative length
1311 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1312 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1314 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1316 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1317 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1319 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1320 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1324 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1325 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1327 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1329 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1330 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1331 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1334 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1336 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1338 =item No comma allowed after %s
1340 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1341 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1342 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1344 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1345 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1346 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1347 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1348 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1349 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1350 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1351 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1352 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1353 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1354 this error was triggered?
1356 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1358 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1359 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither you
1360 want to pipe the output from this command.
1362 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1364 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1365 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1366 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1367 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1368 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1371 =item No dbm on this machine
1373 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1374 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1376 =item No DBsub routine
1378 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1379 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1380 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1381 ordinary subroutine call.
1383 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1385 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1386 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1387 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1389 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1391 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1392 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1393 from which to read data for stdin.
1395 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1397 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1398 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1399 whither you wanted to redirect stdout.
1401 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1403 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1404 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1405 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1407 =item No Perl script found in input
1409 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1410 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1412 =item No setregid available
1414 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1417 =item No setreuid available
1419 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1422 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1424 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1427 =item No such pipe open
1429 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1430 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1431 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1433 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1435 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1436 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1438 =item Not a CODE reference
1440 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1441 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1442 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1443 See also L<perlref>.
1445 =item Not a format reference
1447 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1448 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1450 =item Not a GLOB reference
1452 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1453 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1454 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1455 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1457 =item Not a HASH reference
1459 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1460 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1461 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1463 =item Not a perl script
1465 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1466 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1469 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1471 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1472 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1473 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1475 =item Not a subroutine reference
1477 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1478 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1479 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1480 See also L<perlref>.
1482 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1484 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1485 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1487 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1489 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1490 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1491 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1493 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1495 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1497 =item Not enough format arguments
1499 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1502 =item Null filename used
1504 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1505 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1507 =item Null picture in formline
1509 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1510 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1511 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1513 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1515 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1519 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1521 =item NULL regexp argument
1523 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1525 =item NULL regexp parameter
1527 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1529 =item Odd number of elements in hash list
1531 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash list, which is odd,
1532 because hash lists come in key/value pairs.
1534 =item Offset outside string
1536 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1537 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1538 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1539 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1543 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1547 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1549 =item Operation `%s': no method found,%s
1551 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1552 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1553 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1554 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1555 true. See L<overload>.
1557 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1559 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1560 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1561 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1562 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1563 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1565 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1567 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1568 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1570 =item Out of memory!
1572 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1573 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1575 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1576 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1577 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1578 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
1579 error is trappable I<once>.
1581 =item Out of memory during request for %s
1583 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1584 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1585 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1586 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1590 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1593 =item panic: ck_grep
1595 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1597 =item panic: ck_split
1599 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1601 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1603 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1604 are in the savestack.
1608 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1609 it wasn't an eval context.
1611 =item panic: do_match
1613 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1615 =item panic: do_split
1617 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1619 =item panic: do_subst
1621 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1623 =item panic: do_trans
1625 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1629 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1630 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1632 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1634 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1636 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1638 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1642 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1643 it wasn't a block context.
1645 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1647 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
1649 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1651 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1652 invalid enum on the top of it.
1656 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1658 =item panic: mapstart
1660 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1662 =item panic: null array
1664 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1666 =item panic: pad_alloc
1668 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1669 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1671 =item panic: pad_free curpad
1673 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1674 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1676 =item panic: pad_free po
1678 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1680 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
1682 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1683 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1685 =item panic: pad_sv po
1687 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1689 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1691 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1692 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1694 =item panic: pad_swipe po
1696 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1698 =item panic: pp_iter
1700 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1702 =item panic: realloc
1704 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1706 =item panic: restartop
1708 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1709 didn't supply the destination.
1713 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1714 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
1716 =item panic: scan_num
1718 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
1720 =item panic: sv_insert
1722 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
1725 =item panic: top_env
1727 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
1731 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
1733 =item Pareneses missing around "%s" list
1735 (W) You said something like
1741 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
1743 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
1745 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
1747 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
1748 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
1749 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
1751 =item Permission denied
1753 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
1755 =item pid %d not a child
1757 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
1758 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
1759 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
1761 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
1763 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
1764 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
1766 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
1768 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
1769 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
1770 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
1771 exclamation marks parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1774 You probably wrote something like this:
1781 when you should have written this:
1788 If you really want comments, build your list the
1789 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
1793 'b', # another comment
1796 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
1798 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
1799 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
1800 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1803 You probably wrote something like this:
1807 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
1808 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
1812 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
1814 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
1815 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
1816 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
1817 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
1819 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
1821 (S) The old irregular construct
1825 is now misinterpreted as
1829 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
1830 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
1831 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead of "||".
1833 =item print on closed filehandle %s
1835 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
1836 Check your logic flow.
1838 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
1840 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1841 Check your logic flow.
1843 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
1845 (W) The compiler found a bare word where it expected a conditional,
1846 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
1847 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
1851 =item Prototype mismatch: (%s) vs (%s)
1853 (S) The subroutine being defined had a pre-declared (forward) declaration
1854 with a different function prototype.
1856 =item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
1858 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
1859 Check your logic flow.
1861 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
1863 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
1865 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
1867 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
1868 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
1869 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
1871 =item Recursive inheritance detected
1873 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
1874 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
1876 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
1878 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
1879 reference count of other than 1.
1881 =item regexp memory corruption
1883 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1884 expression compiler gave it.
1886 =item regexp out of space
1888 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
1890 =item regexp too big
1892 (F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
1893 address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
1894 the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
1895 Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
1896 way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
1898 =item Reversed %s= operator
1900 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
1901 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
1903 =item Runaway format
1905 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
1906 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
1907 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
1908 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
1909 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
1911 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
1913 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
1914 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1915 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
1916 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
1917 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1918 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
1920 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
1921 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
1922 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1925 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
1927 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
1928 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1929 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
1930 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
1931 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1932 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
1934 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
1935 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
1936 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1939 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
1941 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script with its setuid
1942 or setgid bit not set. This doesn't make much sense.
1944 =item Search pattern not terminated
1946 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
1947 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1949 =item seek() on unopened file
1951 (W) You tried to use the seek() function on a filehandle that was either
1952 never opened or has been closed since.
1954 =item select not implemented
1956 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
1958 =item sem%s not implemented
1960 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
1962 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
1964 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
1965 that had previously been marked as free.
1967 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
1969 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
1970 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
1972 =item Send on closed socket
1974 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
1975 Check your logic flow.
1977 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
1979 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
1980 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
1982 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
1984 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
1985 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
1987 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
1989 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
1994 Also known as "500 Server error".
1996 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
1998 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
1999 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2000 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2001 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2002 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2003 for more information:
2005 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/idiots-guide.html
2006 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/perl-cgi-faq.html
2007 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2008 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2009 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2011 =item setegid() not implemented
2013 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2014 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2017 =item seteuid() not implemented
2019 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2020 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2023 =item setrgid() not implemented
2025 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2026 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2029 =item setruid() not implemented
2031 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2032 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2035 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2037 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2038 because the world might have written on it already.
2040 =item shm%s not implemented
2042 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2044 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2046 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2048 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2050 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2051 put it into the wrong package?
2053 =item sort is now a reserved word
2055 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2056 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2058 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2060 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2061 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2062 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2064 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2066 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2067 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2071 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2072 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2073 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2075 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2077 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2078 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has been closed since.
2080 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2082 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2083 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2084 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2085 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2088 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2090 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2091 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2094 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2096 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2100 eval "sub name { ... }";
2103 =item Substitution loop
2105 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2106 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2107 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2108 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2110 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2112 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2113 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2115 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2117 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2118 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2120 =item substr outside of string
2122 (W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a string.
2123 That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the length of
2124 the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
2126 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2128 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2129 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2133 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2135 A keyword is misspelled.
2136 A semicolon is missing.
2138 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2139 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2140 A closing quote is missing.
2142 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2143 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2144 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2145 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2146 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2147 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2148 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2149 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2150 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2152 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2154 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2155 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2158 =item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
2160 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm",
2161 or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
2163 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2165 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2166 Check your logic flow.
2168 =item tell() on unopened file
2170 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2171 never opened or has been closed since.
2173 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2175 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2176 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2178 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2180 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2181 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2190 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2191 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2193 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2195 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2196 to the probings of Configure.
2198 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2200 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2201 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2202 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2203 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2206 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2208 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2209 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2210 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2212 =item times not implemented
2214 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2215 you're not running on Unix.
2217 =item Too few args to syscall
2219 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2220 system call to call, silly dilly.
2222 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2224 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2225 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its argument
2226 list. This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in
2227 a script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the
2228 environment. So Perl gives up.
2230 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2231 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2232 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2233 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2235 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2236 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2242 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2243 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2246 =item Too many args to syscall
2248 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2250 =item Too many arguments for %s
2252 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2254 =item trailing \ in regexp
2256 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2259 =item Translation pattern not terminated
2261 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2264 =item Translation replacement not terminated
2266 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2269 =item truncate not implemented
2271 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2272 Configure knows about.
2274 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2276 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2277 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2278 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2279 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2281 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2283 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal literals
2284 always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2286 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2288 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2290 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2292 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2293 contexts were entered and left.
2295 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2297 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2298 values were temporarily localized.
2300 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2302 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2303 were entered and left.
2305 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2307 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2308 scalars were allocated and freed.
2310 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2312 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2313 another package? See L<perlform>.
2315 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2317 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2318 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2320 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2322 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2323 has since been undefined.
2325 =item Undefined subroutine called
2327 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2328 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2330 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2332 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2333 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2335 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2337 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2338 another package? See L<perlform>.
2340 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2342 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2343 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2345 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2347 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2349 =item unmatched () in regexp
2351 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2352 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2353 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2355 =item Unmatched right bracket
2357 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2358 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2359 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2362 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2364 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2365 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2368 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2370 (W) You used a bare word that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2371 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2372 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2374 =item Unrecognized character \%03o ignored
2376 (S) A garbage character was found in the input, and ignored, in case it's
2377 a weird control character on an EBCDIC machine, or some such.
2379 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2381 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2382 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2384 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s
2386 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2387 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2388 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2390 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2392 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2393 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2394 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chop>.
2396 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2398 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2400 =item Unsupported function %s
2402 (F) This machines doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2403 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2405 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2407 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2408 least that's what Configure thought.
2410 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
2412 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2413 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2414 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2415 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2417 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2419 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
2420 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2422 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2424 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
2425 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2426 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2427 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2429 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2431 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2432 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2434 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2436 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2437 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2440 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
2442 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2443 wish to use a blank line as the terminator of the here-document.
2445 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2447 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2448 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2449 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2451 =item Use of uninitialized value
2453 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2454 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2455 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2457 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2459 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2460 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2461 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2462 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2463 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2464 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2468 when you meant to say
2470 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2472 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2473 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2478 when you should have said
2482 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2483 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2484 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2485 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2486 L<perlref> for more on this.
2488 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
2490 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
2491 valid when C<untie> was called.
2493 =item Value of %s construct can be "0"; test with defined()
2495 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), or
2496 C<readdir> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
2497 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which
2498 is probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in
2499 conditional expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
2501 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
2503 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2504 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2505 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2506 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2507 on the front of your variable.
2509 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
2511 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
2512 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
2513 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
2514 the outermost subroutine. For example:
2516 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
2518 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
2519 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
2520 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
2521 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
2522 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
2523 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
2526 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
2527 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
2528 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
2529 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
2531 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
2533 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
2534 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
2536 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
2537 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
2538 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
2539 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
2540 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
2541 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
2543 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
2544 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
2545 will I<never> share the given variable.
2547 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
2548 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
2549 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
2550 they are automatically re-bound to the current values of such
2553 =item Variable syntax
2555 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2556 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2559 =item Warning: something's wrong
2561 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
2562 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
2564 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
2566 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
2567 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
2569 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
2571 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2572 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2573 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2574 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2578 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
2582 but in actual fact, you got
2586 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
2588 =item Write on closed filehandle
2590 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2591 Check your logic flow.
2593 =item X outside of string
2595 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
2596 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2598 =item x outside of string
2600 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
2601 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2603 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
2605 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2607 =item Xsub called in sort
2609 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2611 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
2613 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
2614 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
2615 Use a filename instead.
2617 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
2619 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
2620 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
2621 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
2622 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
2624 =item You need to quote "%s"
2626 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
2627 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
2628 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
2629 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
2631 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
2633 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
2634 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2635 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2637 =item \1 better written as $1
2639 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
2640 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
2641 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
2642 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
2643 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
2645 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
2647 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2648 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
2649 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
2651 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
2653 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2654 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
2655 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
2656 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
2659 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
2666 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2668 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2669 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2671 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2673 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2681 with non-empty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2682 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may appear
2683 if components are not found, or are too long. See L<perlos2/"PERLLIB_PREFIX">.
2685 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2687 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2688 C<sh>-shell in. See L<perlos2/"PERL_SH_DIR">.
2690 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2692 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2693 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2694 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2695 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See L<perlos2/"Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT">.