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 (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
137 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
143 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
145 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
151 or a hash or array slice, such as:
153 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
154 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
156 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
158 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
159 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
162 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
164 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
165 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
166 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
168 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
170 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
171 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
172 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
173 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
174 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
175 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
177 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
179 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
180 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
182 =item assertion botched: %s
184 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
186 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
188 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
190 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
192 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
193 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
194 know which context to supply to the right side.
196 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
198 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
199 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
200 Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
201 created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
202 thread. See L<threads>.
204 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
206 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
207 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
209 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
211 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
212 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
213 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
219 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
221 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
222 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
225 bless $self, "$proto";
227 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
229 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
230 which is not in its key set.
232 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
234 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
235 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
237 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
239 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
240 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
241 outside any of those arenas.
243 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
245 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
246 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
247 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
248 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
250 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
252 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
253 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
254 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
255 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
258 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
260 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
262 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
264 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
265 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
266 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
267 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
268 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
269 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
272 =item Attempt to join self
274 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
275 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
276 to move the join() to some other thread.
278 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
280 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
281 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
282 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
283 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
284 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
287 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
289 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
290 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
291 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
294 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
296 (W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
297 can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
298 of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
300 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
303 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
305 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
306 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
307 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
309 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
311 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
312 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
313 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
314 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
316 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
318 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
319 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
320 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
322 =item Bad filehandle: %s
324 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
325 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
326 open(), or did it in another package.
328 =item Bad free() ignored
330 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
331 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
332 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
334 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
335 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
336 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
340 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
342 =item Badly placed ()'s
344 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
345 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
348 =item Bad name after %s::
350 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
351 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
360 $sym = "mypack::$var";
362 =item Bad realloc() ignored
364 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
365 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
366 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
368 =item Bad symbol for array
370 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
371 wasn't a symbol table entry.
373 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
375 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
376 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
379 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
381 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
382 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
384 =item Bad symbol for hash
386 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
387 wasn't a symbol table entry.
389 =item Bareword found in conditional
391 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
392 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
393 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
397 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
400 use constant TYPO => 1;
401 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
403 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
405 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
407 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
408 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
409 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
411 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
413 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
414 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
415 you need to predeclare a package?
417 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
419 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
420 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
423 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
425 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
426 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
427 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
428 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
429 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
431 =item \1 better written as $1
433 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
434 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
435 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
436 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
437 there are more than 9 backreferences.
439 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
441 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
442 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
443 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
445 =item bind() on closed socket %s
447 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
448 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
450 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
452 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
453 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
455 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
457 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
459 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
461 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
464 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
466 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
467 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
468 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
470 =item Callback called exit
472 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
473 exited by calling exit.
475 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
477 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
478 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
479 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
480 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
481 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
482 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
483 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
484 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
486 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
488 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
489 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
490 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
491 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
493 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
495 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
496 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
498 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
500 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
501 then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
502 triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
503 from that type of reference to a typeglob.
505 =item Cannot copy to %s in %s
507 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
508 be directly assigned not.
510 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
512 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
513 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
514 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
516 =item Can't bless non-reference value
518 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
519 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
521 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
523 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
524 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
526 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
528 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
530 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
532 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
533 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
534 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
536 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
538 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
539 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
540 like this will reproduce the error:
543 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
544 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
546 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
548 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
549 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
550 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
551 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
553 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
555 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
556 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
557 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
558 Something like this will reproduce the error:
561 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
562 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
564 =item Can't chdir to %s
566 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
567 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
569 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
571 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
574 =item Can't coerce array into hash
576 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
577 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
578 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
580 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
582 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
583 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
593 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
595 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
597 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
598 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
600 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
602 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
603 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
605 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
607 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
610 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
612 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
613 quotas or other plumbing problems.
615 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
617 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
618 class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration. The semantics may be
619 extended for other types of variables in future.
621 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
623 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
624 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
626 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
628 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
629 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
631 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
633 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
636 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
638 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
639 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
640 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
642 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
644 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
645 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
646 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
648 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
650 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
651 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
652 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
654 =item Can't do setegid!
656 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
659 =item Can't do seteuid!
661 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
663 =item Can't do setuid
665 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
666 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
667 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
668 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
669 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
670 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
672 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
674 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
675 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
677 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
679 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
680 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
683 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
685 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
686 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
687 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
688 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
690 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
692 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
693 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
694 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
695 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
696 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
697 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
702 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
703 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
704 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
706 =item Can't execute %s
708 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
709 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
711 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
713 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
714 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
716 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
718 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
719 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
720 (remember that the names of character properties consist only of
721 alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
723 =item Can't find label %s
725 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
726 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
728 =item Can't find %s on PATH
730 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
733 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
735 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
736 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
737 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
739 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
741 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
742 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
743 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
745 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
747 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
748 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
749 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
751 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
753 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
754 example C<\p{Lu}> is all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
755 Unicode property, see L<perlunicode> for the list of known properties.
756 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
757 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
762 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
765 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
767 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
768 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
769 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
770 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
771 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
772 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
773 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
774 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
775 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
776 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
777 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
778 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
779 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
780 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
781 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
783 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
785 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
786 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
788 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
790 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
791 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
793 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
795 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
796 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
798 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
800 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
801 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
802 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
803 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
805 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
807 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
808 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
809 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
811 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
813 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
816 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
818 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
819 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
820 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
821 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
823 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
825 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
826 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
827 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
828 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
829 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
830 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
832 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
834 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
835 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
836 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
837 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
838 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
839 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
842 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
844 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
845 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
847 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
849 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
850 may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
851 incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
852 between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
853 extension was built against an older version of the library that is
854 installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
857 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
859 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
860 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
861 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
864 =item Can't localize through a reference
866 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
867 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
868 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
869 that $ref will still be a reference.
871 =item Can't locate %s
873 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
874 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
875 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
876 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
877 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
878 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
879 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
881 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
883 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
884 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
885 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
886 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
888 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
890 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
891 for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
892 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
894 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
896 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
897 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
898 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
900 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
902 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
903 doesn't seem to exist.
905 =item Can't locate package %s for the parents of %s
907 (W syntax) You did not define (or require/use) the first package,
908 which is named as a (possibly indirect) parent of the second by
909 C<@ISA> inheritance. Perl will treat this as if the undefined
910 package had an empty C<@ISA>.
912 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
914 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
915 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
917 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
919 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
922 =item Can't modify %s in %s
924 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
925 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
927 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
929 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
932 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
934 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
935 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
937 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
939 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
942 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
944 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
945 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
946 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
947 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
948 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
949 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
951 =item Can't open %s: %s
953 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
954 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
955 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
956 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
959 =item Can't open a reference
961 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
962 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
966 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
967 open is not supported.
969 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
971 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
972 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
973 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
974 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
976 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
978 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
979 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
980 the command line for writing.
982 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
984 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
985 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
986 command line for reading.
988 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
990 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
991 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
992 the command line for writing.
994 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
996 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
997 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1000 =item Can't open perl script%s
1002 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1004 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1005 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1006 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1008 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1010 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1011 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1012 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1013 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1016 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1018 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1019 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1020 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1021 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1022 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1023 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1025 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1027 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1028 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1029 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1031 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1033 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1034 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1036 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1038 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1039 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1041 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1043 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1044 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1045 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1047 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
1049 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1052 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1054 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1055 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1058 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1060 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1061 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1063 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1065 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1066 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1067 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1068 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1071 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1073 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1074 open already. Bizarre.
1076 =item Can't swap uid and euid
1078 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1081 =item Can't take log of %g
1083 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1084 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1085 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1088 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1090 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1091 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1092 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1094 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1096 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1097 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1098 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1102 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1103 as the main Perl stack.
1105 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1107 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1108 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1109 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1110 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1112 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1114 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1115 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1116 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1118 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1120 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1121 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1123 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1125 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1126 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1128 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1130 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1131 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1132 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1134 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1136 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1137 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1138 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1140 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1142 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1145 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1147 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1148 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1149 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1150 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1153 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1155 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1156 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1157 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1158 is inside a big-endian group.
1160 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1162 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1163 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1164 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1165 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1168 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1170 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1171 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1172 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1174 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1176 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1177 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1179 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1181 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1182 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1183 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1185 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1187 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1188 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1189 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1190 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1191 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1194 =item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
1196 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1197 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1198 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1199 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1201 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1203 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1204 references can be weakened.
1206 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1208 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1209 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1210 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1212 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1218 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1219 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1220 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1224 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1227 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1233 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1234 all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1237 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1239 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1245 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1246 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1247 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1249 pack("c", $x & 255);
1251 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1254 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1256 (W unpack) You tried something like
1258 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1260 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1261 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1262 modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1264 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1266 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1268 (W pack) You tried something like
1270 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1272 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1273 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1274 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1276 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1278 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1280 (W unpack) You tried something like
1282 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1284 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1285 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1286 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1288 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1290 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1292 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1294 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1296 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1297 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1299 =item Code missing after '/'
1301 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1302 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1304 =item %s: Command not found
1306 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1307 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1309 =item Compilation failed in require
1311 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1312 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1313 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1315 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1317 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1318 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1319 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1320 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1321 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1322 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1323 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1324 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1325 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1327 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1329 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1330 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1331 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1332 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1333 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1334 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1335 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1338 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1340 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1341 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1342 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1343 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1344 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1345 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1346 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1349 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1351 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1352 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1353 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1355 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1357 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1358 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1359 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1360 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1363 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1365 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1366 the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1367 forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
1371 =item Constant is not %s reference
1373 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1374 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1375 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1376 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1377 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1379 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1381 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1382 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1383 commentary and workarounds.
1385 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1387 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1388 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1391 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1393 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1394 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1396 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1398 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1400 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1402 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1403 expression compiler gave it.
1405 =item corrupted regexp program
1407 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1410 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1412 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1414 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1416 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1417 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1420 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1422 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1423 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1424 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1425 which case it indicates something else.
1427 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1429 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1430 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1431 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1433 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1435 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1436 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1437 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1439 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1441 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1442 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1444 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1446 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1447 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1448 that triggers this error.
1450 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1452 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1453 There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1454 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1455 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1456 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1457 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1458 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1460 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1464 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1466 Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1467 have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1469 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1471 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1473 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1474 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1475 to create a dangling reference.
1477 =item Did not produce a valid header
1481 =item %s did not return a true value
1483 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1484 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1485 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1486 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1488 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1490 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1493 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1495 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1496 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1499 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1501 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1502 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1507 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1508 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1510 =item Document contains no data
1514 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1516 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1517 define a C<$VERSION.>
1519 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1521 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1522 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1524 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1526 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1528 =item do_study: out of memory
1530 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1532 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1534 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1535 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1536 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1537 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1538 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1539 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1540 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1541 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1543 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1545 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1546 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1548 =item dump is not supported
1550 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1552 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1554 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1557 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1559 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1560 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1562 =item elseif should be elsif
1564 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1565 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1566 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1567 unlikely to be what you want.
1571 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1572 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1573 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1575 =item entering effective %s failed
1577 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1578 effective uids or gids failed.
1580 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1582 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1583 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1584 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1586 =item Error converting file specification %s
1588 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1589 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1590 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1591 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1592 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1594 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1596 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1597 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1598 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1600 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1602 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1603 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1604 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1605 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1606 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1607 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1609 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1611 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1612 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1613 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1615 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1617 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1618 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1620 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1623 =item Excessively long <> operator
1625 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1626 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1627 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1628 variable and glob that.
1630 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1632 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1634 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1636 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1638 =item Exiting eval via %s
1640 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1641 goto, or a loop control statement.
1643 =item Exiting format via %s
1645 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1646 goto, or a loop control statement.
1648 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1650 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1651 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1652 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1654 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1656 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1657 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1659 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1661 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1662 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1664 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1666 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1667 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1668 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1669 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1671 =item %s: Expression syntax
1673 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1674 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1676 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1678 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1679 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1680 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1682 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1684 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1685 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1686 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1687 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1688 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1690 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1692 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1693 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1694 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1695 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1697 =item fcntl is not implemented
1699 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1700 PDP-11 or something?
1702 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1704 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1707 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1709 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1710 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1711 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1714 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1716 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1717 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1718 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1719 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1721 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1723 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1724 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1725 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1726 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1727 Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1728 (also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1730 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1732 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1733 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1736 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1738 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1739 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
1741 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1743 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1744 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1745 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1748 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1750 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1751 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1752 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1755 =item Format not terminated
1757 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1758 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1760 =item Format %s redefined
1762 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1765 no warnings 'redefine';
1766 eval "format NAME =...";
1769 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1779 (or something like that).
1781 =item %s found where operator expected
1783 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1784 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1785 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1786 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1788 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1790 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1792 =item gethostent not implemented
1794 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1795 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1798 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1800 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1801 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1803 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1805 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1806 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1808 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1810 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1811 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1812 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1814 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1816 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
1817 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
1818 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1819 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1821 =item glob failed (%s)
1823 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1824 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1825 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1826 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1827 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1828 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1829 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1830 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1831 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1832 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1833 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1835 =item Glob not terminated
1837 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1838 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1839 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1840 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1842 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1844 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1845 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1847 =item goto must have label
1849 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1850 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1852 =item ()-group starts with a count
1854 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
1855 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1856 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1858 =item %s had compilation errors
1860 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1862 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1864 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1865 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1866 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1868 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1870 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1871 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1873 =item %s has too many errors
1875 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1876 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1878 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1880 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1881 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1882 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1884 =item Identifier too long
1886 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1887 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1888 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1889 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1891 =item Ignoring %s in character class in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1893 (W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return multi-char
1894 or zero length sequences. When such an escape is used in a character class
1895 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
1896 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
1898 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1900 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1902 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1904 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1905 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1908 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1910 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1911 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1912 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1913 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1914 to your Perl administrator.
1916 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1918 (W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
1919 characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1921 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1923 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1924 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1926 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
1928 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
1930 =item Illegal division by zero
1932 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1933 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1936 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1938 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1939 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1940 number stopped before the illegal character.
1942 =item Illegal modulus zero
1944 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1945 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1947 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1949 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1950 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1952 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1954 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1956 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1958 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1959 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1961 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1963 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1964 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
1966 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1968 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1969 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1970 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1972 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1974 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1975 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1976 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1979 =item (in cleanup) %s
1981 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1982 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1983 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1984 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1985 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1987 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1988 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1990 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
1992 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
1993 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
1994 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
1996 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
1998 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
1999 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2000 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2002 =item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2004 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2005 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2006 either consume text or fail.
2008 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2011 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2013 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2014 of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2015 C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2016 as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2018 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2020 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2021 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2022 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2023 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2024 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2025 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2026 L<perlsec> for more information.
2028 =item Insecure directory in %s
2030 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2031 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2032 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2035 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2037 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2038 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2039 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2040 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2041 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2043 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2045 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2046 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2047 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2048 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2049 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2050 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2051 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2052 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2055 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2057 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2058 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2059 integers for your architecture.
2061 =item Integer overflow in version
2063 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2064 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2065 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2066 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2067 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2070 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2072 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2073 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2076 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2078 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2079 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2080 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2081 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2082 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2083 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2085 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2087 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2088 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2091 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2093 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2094 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2095 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2096 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2098 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2100 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2101 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2103 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2105 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2106 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2108 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2110 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2111 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2113 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2115 (W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2116 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2117 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2118 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2119 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2120 escape was discovered.
2122 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2124 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2125 or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2126 (Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2128 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2130 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2131 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2132 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2133 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2134 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2136 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2138 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2139 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2141 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2143 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2144 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2145 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2148 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2150 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2151 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2152 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2153 list was terminated too soon.
2155 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2157 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2158 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2159 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2162 =item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
2164 (F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
2165 that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
2168 =item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
2170 (F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
2171 See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
2173 =item ioctl is not implemented
2175 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2176 strange for a machine that supports C.
2178 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2180 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2181 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2183 =item IO layers (like "%s") unavailable
2185 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2186 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2189 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2191 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2192 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2194 =item $* is no longer supported
2196 (S deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
2197 been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2198 C<//m> and C<//s> regexp modifiers instead.
2200 =item $# is no longer supported
2202 (S deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
2203 been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2204 printf/sprintf functions instead.
2206 =item `%s' is not a code reference
2208 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2209 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
2212 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2214 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2217 =item junk on end of regexp
2219 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2221 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2223 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2224 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2227 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2229 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2230 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2233 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2235 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2236 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2239 =item leaving effective %s failed
2241 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2242 effective uids or gids failed.
2244 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2246 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2247 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2248 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2250 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2252 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2253 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2256 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2258 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2259 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2261 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
2263 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2264 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2265 instead on the filehandle.)
2267 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2269 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2270 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2271 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2273 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2275 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2276 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2278 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2280 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2281 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2283 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2285 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2292 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2293 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2294 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2295 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2297 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2299 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2300 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2301 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2302 when the function is called.
2304 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2306 (S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2307 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2309 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2310 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2311 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2313 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2314 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2315 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2318 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2320 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2322 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2323 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2325 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2327 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2328 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2330 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2332 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2333 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2335 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2337 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2338 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2340 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%s) exceeded
2342 (F) Perl aborted due to a too important number of signals pending. This
2343 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2344 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2345 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2346 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2348 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2350 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2351 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2352 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2355 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2357 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2358 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2361 =item % may not be used in pack
2363 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2364 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2365 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2367 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2369 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2370 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2372 =item Method %s not permitted
2376 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2378 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2379 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2380 ended earlier on the current line.
2382 =item Misplaced _ in number
2384 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2385 separate two digits.
2387 =item Missing argument to -%c
2389 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2390 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2392 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
2394 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2395 double-quotish context.
2397 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2399 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2400 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2402 =item Missing command in piped open
2404 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2405 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2408 =item Missing control char name in \c
2410 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2413 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2415 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2416 they have a name with which they can be found.
2418 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2420 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2421 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2422 can vary from one line to the next.
2424 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2426 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2427 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2429 =item Missing right brace on %s
2431 (F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
2433 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2435 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2436 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2439 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2441 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2442 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2443 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2445 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2447 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2448 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2449 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2451 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2454 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2456 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2457 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2460 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2461 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2464 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2466 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2467 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2470 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2472 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2473 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2475 =item Module name must be constant
2477 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2479 =item Module name required with -%c option
2481 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2482 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2483 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2485 =item More than one argument to open
2487 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2488 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2489 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2490 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2492 =item msg%s not implemented
2494 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2496 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2498 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2499 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2501 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2503 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2504 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2505 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2507 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2509 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2512 =item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
2514 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2515 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2516 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2518 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2520 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2521 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2522 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2523 provided for this purpose.
2525 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2526 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2527 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2528 will not trigger this warning.
2530 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2532 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2533 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2535 =item Negative length
2537 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2538 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2540 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2542 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2543 greater than or equal to zero.
2545 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2547 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2548 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2549 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2551 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2552 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2554 =item %s never introduced
2556 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2557 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2559 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2561 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2562 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2565 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2567 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2568 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2569 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2570 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2572 =item No comma allowed after %s
2574 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2575 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2576 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2578 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2579 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2580 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2581 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2582 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2583 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2584 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2585 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2586 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2587 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2588 this error was triggered?
2590 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2592 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2593 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2594 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2596 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2598 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2599 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2600 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2603 =item No dbm on this machine
2605 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2606 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2608 =item No DB::sub routine defined
2610 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2611 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2612 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2613 of each ordinary subroutine call.
2615 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2617 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2619 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2621 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2622 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2623 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2625 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2627 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2628 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2630 =item No input file after < on command line
2632 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2633 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2634 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2638 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2639 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2641 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2643 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2644 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2645 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2646 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2648 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2650 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2651 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2653 =item No output file after > on command line
2655 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2656 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2657 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2659 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2661 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2662 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2663 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2665 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2667 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2668 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2669 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2671 =item No Perl script found in input
2673 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2674 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2676 =item No setregid available
2678 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2681 =item No setreuid available
2683 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2686 =item No %s specified for -%c
2688 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2689 you haven't specified one.
2691 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2693 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2694 but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2695 package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2697 =item No such class %s
2699 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2700 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2702 =item No such pipe open
2704 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2705 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2706 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2708 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2710 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2711 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2712 names on your system.
2714 =item Not a CODE reference
2716 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2717 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2718 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2721 =item Not a format reference
2723 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2724 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2726 =item Not a GLOB reference
2728 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2729 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2730 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2731 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2733 =item Not a HASH reference
2735 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2736 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2737 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2739 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2741 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2742 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2743 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2745 =item Not a perl script
2747 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2748 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2751 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2753 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2754 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2755 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2757 =item Not a subroutine reference
2759 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2760 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2761 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2764 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2766 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2767 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2769 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2771 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2773 =item Not enough format arguments
2775 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2776 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2780 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2781 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2784 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2786 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2787 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2788 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2789 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2790 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2792 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
2794 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
2795 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
2796 select. See L<perlfunc/select>
2798 =item Null filename used
2800 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2801 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2803 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2805 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2808 =item Null picture in formline
2810 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2811 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2812 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2816 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2818 =item NULL regexp argument
2820 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2822 =item NULL regexp parameter
2824 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2826 =item Number too long
2828 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2829 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2830 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2831 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2834 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2836 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2837 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2840 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2842 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2843 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2844 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2846 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2848 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2850 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2851 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
2853 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2855 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2856 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2858 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2860 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2861 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2863 =item Offset outside string
2865 (F, W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
2866 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
2867 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
2868 take place when going past the end of the string when either
2869 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
2870 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
2873 =item %s() on unopened %s
2875 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2876 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2877 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2879 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2881 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2882 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2886 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2890 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2892 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
2894 (W io deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
2895 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
2896 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
2899 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
2901 (W io deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
2902 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
2903 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
2906 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
2908 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2909 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2910 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2911 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2913 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2915 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2916 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2917 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2918 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2921 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2923 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2924 in the current lexical scope.
2926 =item Out of memory!
2928 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2929 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2930 no option but to exit immediately.
2932 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
2933 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
2934 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
2935 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
2936 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
2938 =item Out of memory during %s extend
2940 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
2941 the largest possible memory allocation.
2943 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2945 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2946 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2947 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2948 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2950 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2952 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2953 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2956 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2957 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2958 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2959 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2960 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2961 where the failed request happened.
2963 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2965 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2966 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2967 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2969 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2971 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2972 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2975 =item '.' outside of string in pack
2977 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
2978 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
2980 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
2982 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2983 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2985 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
2987 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2988 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
2989 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2991 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2993 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2994 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2995 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2996 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2998 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3000 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3001 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3005 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3006 page. See L<perlform>.
3010 (P) An internal error.
3012 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3014 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3015 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3016 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3017 enter this branch on this platform.
3019 =item panic: ck_grep
3021 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3023 =item panic: ck_split
3025 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3027 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3029 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3030 there are in the savestack.
3032 =item panic: del_backref
3034 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3037 =item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3039 (P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3040 last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3041 an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3042 a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3046 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3047 it wasn't an eval context.
3049 =item panic: do_subst
3051 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3054 =item panic: do_trans_%s
3056 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
3059 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3061 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
3066 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3070 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3071 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3073 =item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3075 (P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
3076 but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3077 contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3078 adds a new object to the hash.
3080 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3082 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3084 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3086 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3088 =item panic: kid popen errno read
3090 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3094 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3095 it wasn't a block context.
3097 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3099 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3102 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3104 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3105 invalid enum on the top of it.
3107 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3109 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3110 references to an object.
3114 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3116 =item panic: memory wrap
3118 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3120 =item panic: pad_alloc
3122 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3123 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3125 =item panic: pad_free curpad
3127 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3128 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3130 =item panic: pad_free po
3132 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3134 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
3136 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3137 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3139 =item panic: pad_sv po
3141 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3143 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3145 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3146 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3148 =item panic: pad_swipe po
3150 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3152 =item panic: pp_iter
3154 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3156 =item panic: pp_match%s
3158 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3161 =item panic: pp_split
3163 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3165 =item panic: realloc
3167 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3169 =item panic: restartop
3171 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3172 didn't supply the destination.
3176 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3177 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3179 =item panic: scan_num
3181 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3183 =item panic: sv_insert
3185 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3188 =item panic: top_env
3190 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
3192 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3194 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3197 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3199 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3200 to even) byte length.
3204 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3206 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3208 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3209 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3210 nesting limit is exceeded.
3212 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3215 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3217 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3223 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3225 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
3227 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3229 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3230 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3231 redirected it with select().)
3233 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3235 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3236 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3237 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3239 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3241 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3242 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3243 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3244 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3246 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3248 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3249 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3250 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3252 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3254 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3255 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3257 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3259 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3261 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3263 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3265 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3266 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3269 are supported and installed on your system.
3270 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3272 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3273 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3274 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3275 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3276 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3277 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3278 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3279 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3280 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3281 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3283 =item Permission denied
3285 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
3287 =item pid %x not a child
3289 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3290 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3291 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3293 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3295 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3297 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
3299 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
3300 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
3302 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3304 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3305 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3306 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3307 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3308 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3310 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3312 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3313 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3315 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3317 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3318 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3319 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3320 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3321 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3322 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3324 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3326 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3327 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3328 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3329 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3330 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3331 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3333 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3335 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3336 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3337 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3338 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3339 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3340 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3342 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3344 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3345 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3346 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3347 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3349 You probably wrote something like this:
3356 when you should have written this:
3363 If you really want comments, build your list the
3364 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3368 'b', # another comment
3371 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3373 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3374 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3375 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3378 You probably wrote something like this:
3382 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3383 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3387 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3389 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3390 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3391 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3392 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3394 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3396 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3397 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3399 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3401 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3402 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3403 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3404 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3406 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3408 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3409 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3410 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3411 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3413 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
3415 (D deprecated) You have written something like this:
3419 use attrs qw(locked);
3422 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
3428 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
3429 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
3431 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3433 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3437 is now misinterpreted as
3441 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3442 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3443 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3446 =item Premature end of script headers
3450 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3452 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3453 before now. Check your control flow.
3455 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3457 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3458 before now. Check your control flow.
3460 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3462 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3463 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3464 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3465 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3468 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3470 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3471 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3473 =item Prototype not terminated
3475 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3478 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3480 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3481 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3482 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3484 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3486 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3487 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3488 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3490 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3492 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3493 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3494 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3495 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3496 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3498 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3501 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3503 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3504 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3505 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3506 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3508 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3510 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3511 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3513 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3515 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3516 before now. Check your control flow.
3518 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3520 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3522 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3524 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3526 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
3528 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3530 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3532 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3535 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3537 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3538 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3539 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3541 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3543 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3544 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3545 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
3547 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3549 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3550 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3553 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3555 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3556 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3557 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3558 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3560 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3561 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3562 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3563 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3565 =item Reference is already weak
3567 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3568 Doing so has no effect.
3570 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3572 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3573 a reference count of other than 1.
3575 =item Reference to invalid group 0
3577 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
3578 capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
3579 backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
3580 backreferences), but using 0 does not make sense.
3582 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3584 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3585 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3586 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3587 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
3589 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3592 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3594 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
3595 not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
3596 where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
3598 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3601 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3603 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3604 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3605 as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3606 correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3608 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3611 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3613 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3614 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3615 of the C<....> part.
3617 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3620 =item regexp memory corruption
3622 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3623 expression compiler gave it.
3625 =item Regexp out of space
3627 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3630 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3632 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
3633 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3634 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3636 =item Reversed %s= operator
3638 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3639 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3641 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3643 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
3644 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3646 =item Runaway format
3648 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3649 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3650 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3651 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3652 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3654 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3656 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3657 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3658 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3659 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3661 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3663 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3664 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3665 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3666 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3667 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3668 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3669 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3671 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3672 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3673 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3676 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3678 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3679 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3680 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3681 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3682 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3683 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3684 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3686 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3687 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3688 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3691 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3693 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3694 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
3696 =item Search pattern not terminated
3698 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3699 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3700 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3702 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
3703 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3704 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3705 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3707 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
3709 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
3712 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
3713 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
3714 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
3715 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
3717 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3719 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3720 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3722 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3724 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
3725 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3727 =item select not implemented
3729 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3731 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3733 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3734 the current implementation.
3736 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3738 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3739 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3741 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3743 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3744 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3746 =item sem%s not implemented
3748 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3750 =item send() on closed socket %s
3752 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3753 before now. Check your control flow.
3755 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3757 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3758 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3761 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3763 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3764 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3765 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3767 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3769 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3770 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3771 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3773 =item Sequence \\%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3775 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
3776 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
3778 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3780 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3781 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3782 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3785 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3787 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3788 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3789 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3792 =item 500 Server error
3798 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3799 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3800 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3801 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3802 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3803 produce a valid header".
3805 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3807 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3808 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3809 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3810 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3811 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3812 Please see the following for more information:
3814 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3815 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3816 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
3818 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3820 =item setegid() not implemented
3822 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3823 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3826 =item seteuid() not implemented
3828 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3829 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3832 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3834 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3835 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3838 =item setrgid() not implemented
3840 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3841 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3844 =item setruid() not implemented
3846 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3847 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3850 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3852 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3853 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3854 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3856 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3858 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3859 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3861 =item Setuid script not plain file
3863 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
3864 but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
3866 =item shm%s not implemented
3868 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3870 =item !=~ should be !~
3872 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
3873 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
3874 operators: probably not what you intended.
3876 =item <> should be quotes
3878 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3881 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3883 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3884 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3885 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3886 probably not what you had in mind.
3888 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3890 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3893 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3895 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3896 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3898 =item sort is now a reserved word
3900 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3901 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3903 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3905 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3906 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3907 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3909 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3911 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3912 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3914 =item splice() offset past end of array
3916 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
3917 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
3918 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
3919 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
3924 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3925 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3926 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3928 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3930 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3931 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3932 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3933 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3936 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3938 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3939 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3941 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s"
3943 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3944 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3945 C<can> may break this.
3947 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3949 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3952 no warnings 'redefine';
3953 eval "sub name { ... }";
3956 =item Substitution loop
3958 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3959 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3960 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3961 L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
3963 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3965 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3966 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3967 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3969 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3971 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3972 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3973 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3975 =item substr outside of string
3977 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3978 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3979 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3980 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3981 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3983 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3985 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3986 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3988 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
3990 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
3991 inferior to its current type.
3993 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3995 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3996 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3997 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3998 clustering parentheses:
4000 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4002 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4003 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4005 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4007 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
4008 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4009 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4011 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
4013 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4014 and effective uids or gids.
4018 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4022 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4024 A keyword is misspelled.
4025 A semicolon is missing.
4027 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4028 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4029 A closing quote is missing.
4031 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4032 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4033 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4034 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
4035 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
4036 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4037 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4038 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
4039 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
4042 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4044 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4045 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4048 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4050 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4051 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4052 or "my $var" or "our $var".
4054 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4056 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4058 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4060 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4062 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
4064 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4065 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4066 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4067 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
4069 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
4071 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4072 before now. Check your control flow.
4074 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4076 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4077 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4079 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4081 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4082 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
4084 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
4086 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4087 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4089 =item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4091 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4092 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4094 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
4096 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4097 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4106 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4107 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
4109 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
4111 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4112 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
4113 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
4114 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4117 =item The %s function is unimplemented
4119 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4120 to the probings of Configure.
4122 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
4124 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4125 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4126 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4129 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4131 (F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
4133 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
4135 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4137 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
4138 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4139 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4140 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4141 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4142 target of the change to
4143 %ENV which produced the warning.
4145 =item thread failed to start: %s
4147 (W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
4149 =item times not implemented
4151 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4152 suspect you're not running on Unix.
4154 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4156 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4157 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
4158 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4159 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4162 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4163 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
4164 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
4165 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
4167 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4168 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
4170 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4172 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4173 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4174 specified an illegal mapping.
4175 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4177 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4179 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
4181 =item Too few args to syscall
4183 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4184 system call to call, silly dilly.
4186 =item Too late for "-%s" option
4188 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4189 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option. This is an error because those options
4190 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4192 =item Too late to run %s block
4194 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4195 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
4196 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4197 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4200 =item Too many args to syscall
4202 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
4204 =item Too many arguments for %s
4206 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4210 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4211 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4215 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4216 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4218 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
4220 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4221 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
4223 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
4225 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
4226 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4227 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
4229 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
4231 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4232 y/// or y[][] construct.
4234 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4236 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4237 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4239 =item truncate not implemented
4241 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4242 Configure knows about.
4244 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4246 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
4247 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4248 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
4249 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4251 =item umask not implemented
4253 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4254 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
4256 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4258 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4260 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4262 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4263 many execution contexts were entered and left.
4265 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4267 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4268 many values were temporarily localized.
4270 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4272 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4273 many blocks were entered and left.
4275 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4277 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4278 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
4280 =item Undefined format "%s" called
4282 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4283 another package? See L<perlform>.
4285 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4287 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4288 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4290 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4292 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4293 since been undefined.
4295 =item Undefined subroutine called
4297 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4298 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4300 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
4302 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4303 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4305 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
4307 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4308 another package? See L<perlform>.
4310 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4312 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4313 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4316 =item %s: Undefined variable
4318 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4319 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4321 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4323 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4324 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4326 =item Unicode character %s is illegal
4328 (W utf8) Certain Unicode characters have been designated off-limits by
4329 the Unicode standard and should not be generated. If you really know
4330 what you are doing you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4332 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
4334 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4337 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4339 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
4340 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
4341 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
4343 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4345 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4346 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4347 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4348 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4349 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4350 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4352 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4354 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4355 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4356 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4357 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
4359 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4361 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4363 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4365 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4366 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4367 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4368 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4369 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4372 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4373 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4375 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4377 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4378 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4380 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4382 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4383 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4385 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4387 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4388 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4390 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4391 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
4393 =item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4395 (F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4396 after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4397 L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4401 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4403 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
4404 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
4405 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4406 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4408 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4410 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
4411 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4412 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4413 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4415 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
4417 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4418 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4419 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4420 you were last editing.
4422 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4424 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4425 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4426 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4429 =item Unrecognized character %s in column %d
4431 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
4432 in your Perl script (or eval) at the specified column. Perhaps you tried
4433 to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
4435 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4437 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4438 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4439 understood literally.
4440 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4441 escape was discovered.
4443 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
4445 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4446 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally.
4448 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4450 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4451 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally.
4452 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4453 escape was discovered.
4455 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4457 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4458 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4461 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
4463 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4464 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4465 bad switch on your behalf.)
4467 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4469 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4470 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
4471 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
4473 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4475 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4477 =item Unsupported function %s
4479 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4480 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4482 =item Unsupported function fork
4484 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4486 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4487 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4488 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
4490 =item Unsupported script encoding %s
4492 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
4493 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
4495 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4497 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4498 least that's what Configure thought.
4500 =item Unterminated attribute list
4502 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4503 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4504 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4505 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
4507 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4509 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4510 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
4511 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4512 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4514 =item Unterminated compressed integer
4516 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4517 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4518 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4520 =item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4522 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
4523 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4525 =item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4527 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
4528 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4530 =item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4532 (F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
4533 a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
4535 =item Unterminated <> operator
4537 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
4538 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4539 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4540 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
4542 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
4544 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4545 still valid when C<untie> was called.
4547 =item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4549 (F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4550 See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4552 =item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4554 (F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4555 See L<Win32> for more information.
4557 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4559 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4560 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
4562 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
4566 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
4568 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4569 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4571 =item Useless localization of %s
4573 (W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4574 legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4575 some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4577 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4579 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4580 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
4582 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
4586 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
4588 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4589 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4591 =item Useless use of %s in void context
4593 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
4594 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4595 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4596 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4597 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4598 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4603 when you meant to say
4605 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4607 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4608 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4613 when you should have said
4617 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4618 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4619 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4620 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4621 L<perlref> for more on this.
4623 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4624 since they are often used in statements like
4626 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
4628 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4631 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
4633 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4635 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4637 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4641 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4643 =item Useless use of %s with no values
4645 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
4646 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4647 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4648 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4649 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4650 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4652 =item "use" not allowed in expression
4654 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4655 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4657 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4659 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
4660 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4662 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4664 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4665 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4666 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4669 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4670 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4672 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4674 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4675 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4677 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4679 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4680 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4681 used. (This may change in the future.)
4683 =item Use of freed value in iteration
4685 (F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
4686 This error is typically caused by code like the following:
4689 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
4691 You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
4692 For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
4693 reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
4694 middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
4696 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4698 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4699 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4701 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
4703 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4704 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4705 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
4707 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
4709 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
4710 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
4711 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
4713 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4715 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4716 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4717 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4718 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4721 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4722 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4723 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4724 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4727 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
4728 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4729 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4730 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4733 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4734 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
4735 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
4737 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4739 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4740 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4742 =item Use of %s is deprecated
4744 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
4745 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4746 old way has bad side effects.
4748 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4750 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4751 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4752 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4754 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4756 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4757 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4758 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4761 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
4763 (W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
4764 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4765 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
4767 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
4768 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4769 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
4770 operators and then you assumably know what you are doing.
4772 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4774 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4775 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4776 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4777 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4778 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4779 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
4781 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
4783 (W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
4784 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
4785 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
4786 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
4788 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
4790 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
4791 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
4792 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
4794 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
4795 name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
4796 do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
4797 in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
4798 displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
4799 program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
4800 . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
4801 even though there is no C<.> in your program.
4803 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
4805 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
4806 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
4807 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
4808 be removed in a future version.
4810 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
4812 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
4813 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
4814 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
4815 removed in a future version.
4817 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
4819 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of an UTF-16 surrogate by
4820 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
4821 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
4822 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
4823 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
4824 character. If you really know what you are doing you can turn off
4825 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4827 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
4829 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
4830 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
4831 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
4832 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
4833 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
4834 C<defined> operator.
4836 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
4838 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
4839 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
4840 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
4843 =item Variable "%s" is not available
4845 (W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
4846 attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
4847 This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
4848 declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
4849 (Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
4850 subs are created at run-time.) For example,
4852 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
4854 At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
4855 since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
4856 the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
4857 now been created and is live:
4859 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
4861 The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
4862 gone out of scope, for example,
4870 Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
4871 executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
4873 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
4875 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
4876 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
4877 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
4878 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
4879 front of your variable.
4881 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
4883 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
4884 known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
4886 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
4888 (W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the current
4889 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
4890 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
4891 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
4892 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
4894 =item Variable syntax
4896 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4897 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4900 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4902 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
4903 lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
4905 When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
4906 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4907 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4908 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4909 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4910 variable will no longer be shared.
4912 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4913 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
4914 reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
4915 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
4917 =item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4919 (F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an argument
4920 or check that you are using the right verb.
4922 =item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4924 (F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
4925 argument or check that you are using the right verb.
4927 =item Version number must be a constant number
4929 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4930 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4933 =item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
4935 (W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
4938 =item Warning: something's wrong
4940 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
4941 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
4943 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
4945 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4946 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4949 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
4951 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4952 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4953 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4954 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
4958 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4962 but in actual fact, you got
4966 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
4968 =item Wide character in %s
4970 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
4971 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
4972 way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
4973 output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
4974 warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
4975 cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
4976 filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4978 =item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
4980 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
4981 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
4982 determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
4983 of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
4985 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
4987 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4988 before now. Check your control flow.
4990 =item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
4992 When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
4993 into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
4994 this encoding, for example
4996 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
4998 if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5000 =item 'X' outside of string
5002 (F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5003 the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5005 =item 'x' outside of string in unpack
5007 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5008 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5010 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5012 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
5013 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
5014 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
5017 =item You need to quote "%s"
5019 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5020 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5021 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5022 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5023 what you want, put an & in front.)
5025 =item Your random numbers are not that random
5027 (F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5028 not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5029 Something Very Wrong.
5035 L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>.