3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring 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]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and
116 transliteration (tr///) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
141 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
143 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
149 or a hash or array slice, such as:
151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
154 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
156 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
157 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
162 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
166 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
168 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
169 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
171 =item assertion botched: %s
173 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
175 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
177 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
179 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
181 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
182 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
183 know which context to supply to the right side.
185 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
187 (F) When vec is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
188 greater than or equal to zero.
190 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
192 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
193 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
194 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
200 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
202 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
203 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
206 bless $self, "$proto";
208 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
210 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
211 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
212 outside any of those arenas.
214 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
216 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
217 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
218 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
219 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
221 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
223 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
224 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
225 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
226 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
229 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
231 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
233 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
235 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
236 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
237 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
238 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
239 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
240 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
243 =item Attempt to join self
245 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
246 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
247 to move the join() to some other thread.
249 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
251 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
252 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
253 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
254 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
255 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
258 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
260 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
261 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
262 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
264 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
266 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
267 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
268 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
269 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
271 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
273 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
274 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
275 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
277 =item Bad filehandle: %s
279 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
280 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
281 open(), or did it in another package.
283 =item Bad free() ignored
285 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
286 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
287 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
289 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
290 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
291 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
295 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
297 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
299 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
300 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
303 =item Badly placed ()'s
305 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
306 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
309 =item Bad name after %s::
311 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
312 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
321 $sym = "mypack::$var";
323 =item Bad realloc() ignored
325 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
326 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
327 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
329 =item Bad symbol for array
331 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
332 wasn't a symbol table entry.
334 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
336 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
337 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
339 =item Bad symbol for hash
341 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
342 wasn't a symbol table entry.
344 =item Bareword found in conditional
346 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
347 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
348 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
352 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
355 use constant TYPO => 1;
356 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
358 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
360 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
362 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
363 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
364 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
366 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
368 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
369 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
370 you need to predeclare a package?
372 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
374 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
375 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
378 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
380 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
381 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
382 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
383 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
384 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
386 =item \1 better written as $1
388 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
389 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
390 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
391 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
392 there are more than 9 backreferences.
394 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
396 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
397 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
398 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
400 =item bind() on closed socket %s
402 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
403 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
405 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
407 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
409 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
411 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
414 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
416 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
417 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
419 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
421 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
422 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
423 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
425 =item Callback called exit
427 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
428 exited by calling exit.
430 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
432 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
433 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
434 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
435 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
436 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
437 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
438 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
439 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
441 =item / cannot take a count
443 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
444 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
447 =item Can't bless non-reference value
449 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
450 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
452 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
454 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
455 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
456 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
458 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
460 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
461 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
462 like this will reproduce the error:
465 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
466 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
468 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
470 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
471 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
472 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
473 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
475 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
477 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
478 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
479 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
480 Something like this will reproduce the error:
483 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
484 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
486 =item Can't chdir to %s
488 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
489 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
491 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
493 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
496 =item Can't coerce array into hash
498 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
499 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
500 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
502 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
504 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
505 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
515 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
517 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
519 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
520 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
522 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
524 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
525 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
527 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
529 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
530 quotas or other plumbing problems.
532 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
534 (S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
535 qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
536 for other types of variables in future.
538 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
540 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
541 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
543 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
545 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
546 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
548 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
550 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
553 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
555 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
556 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
557 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
559 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
561 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
562 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
563 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
565 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m before << HERE in regex m/%s/
567 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
568 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The << HERE shows in the
569 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
571 =item Can't do setegid!
573 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
576 =item Can't do seteuid!
578 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
580 =item Can't do setuid
582 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
583 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
584 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
585 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
586 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
587 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
589 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
591 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
592 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
594 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
596 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
597 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
600 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
602 (W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
603 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
604 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
605 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
606 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
607 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
612 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
613 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
614 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
616 =item Can't execute %s
618 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
619 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
621 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
623 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
624 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
626 =item Can't find label %s
628 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
629 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
631 =item Can't find %s on PATH
633 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
636 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
638 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
639 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
640 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
642 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
644 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
645 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
646 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
648 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
650 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
651 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
652 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
654 =item Can't find %s property definition %s
656 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property for
657 example \p{Lu} is all uppercase letters. Escape the C<\p>, either
658 C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
663 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
666 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
668 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
669 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
670 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
671 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
672 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
673 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
674 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
675 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
676 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
677 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
678 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
679 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
680 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
681 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
682 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
684 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
686 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
687 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
689 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
691 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
692 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
694 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
696 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
697 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
699 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
701 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
702 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
703 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
704 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
706 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
708 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
709 "string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
710 probably don't want to.)
712 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
714 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
715 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
716 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
717 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
719 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
721 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
722 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
723 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
724 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
725 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
726 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
728 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
730 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
731 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
732 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
733 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
734 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
735 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
738 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
740 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
741 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
742 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
745 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
747 (F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
748 reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
749 can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
750 directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
752 =item Can't localize through a reference
754 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
755 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
756 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
757 that $ref will still be a reference.
759 =item Can't locate %s
761 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
762 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
763 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
764 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
765 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
766 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
767 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
769 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
771 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
772 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
773 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
774 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
776 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
778 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
779 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
780 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
782 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
784 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
785 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
786 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
788 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
790 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
791 doesn't seem to exist.
793 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
795 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
798 =item Can't modify %s in %s
800 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
801 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
803 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
805 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
808 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
810 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
811 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
813 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
815 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
818 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
820 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
821 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
822 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
823 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
824 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
825 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
827 =item Can't open %s: %s
829 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
830 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
831 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
832 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
835 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
837 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
838 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
839 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
840 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
842 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
844 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
845 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
846 the command line for writing.
848 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
850 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
851 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
852 command line for reading.
854 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
856 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
857 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
858 the command line for writing.
860 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
862 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
863 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
866 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
868 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
870 =item Can't read CRTL environ
872 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
873 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
874 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
875 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
878 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
880 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
881 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
882 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
883 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
885 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
887 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
888 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
889 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
890 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
891 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
892 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
894 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
896 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
897 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
898 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
900 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
902 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
903 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
905 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
907 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
908 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
910 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
912 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
913 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
914 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
916 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
918 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
921 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
923 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
924 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
927 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
929 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
930 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
932 =item Can't stat script "%s"
934 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
935 open already. Bizarre.
937 =item Can't swap uid and euid
939 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
942 =item Can't take log of %g
944 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
945 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
946 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
949 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
951 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
952 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
953 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
955 =item Can't undef active subroutine
957 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
958 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
959 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
963 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
964 as the main Perl stack.
966 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
968 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
969 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
970 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
971 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
973 =item Can't upgrade to undef
975 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
976 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
979 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
981 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
982 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
984 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
986 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
987 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
989 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
991 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
992 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
993 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
995 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
997 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1000 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1002 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1003 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1004 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1005 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1008 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1010 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1011 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1012 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1013 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1016 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1018 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1019 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1020 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1022 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1024 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1025 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1027 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1029 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1030 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1031 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1033 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1035 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1036 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1037 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1038 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1039 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1042 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1044 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1045 references can be weakened.
1047 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1049 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1050 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1051 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1053 =item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
1055 (W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
1057 chmod 777, $filename
1059 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1060 equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1063 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1065 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1067 =item %s: Command not found
1069 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1070 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1072 =item Compilation failed in require
1074 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1075 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1076 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1078 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1080 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1081 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1082 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1083 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1084 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1085 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1086 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1087 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1088 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1090 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1092 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1093 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1094 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1096 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1098 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1099 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1100 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1101 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1104 =item Constant is not %s reference
1106 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1107 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1108 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1109 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1110 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1112 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1114 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1115 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1116 commentary and workarounds.
1118 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1120 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1121 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1124 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1126 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1127 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1129 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1131 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1133 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1135 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1136 expression compiler gave it.
1138 =item corrupted regexp program
1140 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1143 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1145 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1147 =item C<-p> destination: %s
1149 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1150 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1151 redirected it with select().)
1153 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1155 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1156 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1158 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1160 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1161 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1162 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1163 which case it indicates something else.
1165 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1167 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1168 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1169 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1171 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1173 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1174 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1175 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1177 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1179 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1180 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1181 that triggers this error.
1183 =item Did not produce a valid header
1187 =item %s did not return a true value
1189 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1190 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1191 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1192 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1194 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1196 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1199 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1201 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1202 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1205 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1207 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1208 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1213 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1214 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1216 =item Document contains no data
1220 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1222 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1224 =item do_study: out of memory
1226 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1228 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1230 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1231 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1232 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1233 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1234 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1235 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1236 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1237 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1239 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1241 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1244 =item elseif should be elsif
1246 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1247 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1248 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1249 unlikely to be what you want.
1251 =item entering effective %s failed
1253 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1254 effective uids or gids failed.
1256 =item Error converting file specification %s
1258 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1259 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1260 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1261 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1262 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1264 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1266 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1267 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1268 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1270 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1272 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1273 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1274 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1275 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1276 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1277 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1279 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1281 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1282 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1283 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1285 =item Excessively long <> operator
1287 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1288 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1289 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1290 variable and glob that.
1292 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1294 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1296 =item Exiting eval via %s
1298 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1299 goto, or a loop control statement.
1301 =item Exiting format via %s
1303 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1304 goto, or a loop control statement.
1306 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1308 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1309 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1310 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1312 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1314 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1315 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1317 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1319 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1320 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1322 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1324 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1325 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1326 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1327 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1329 =item %s: Expression syntax
1331 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1332 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1334 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1336 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1337 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1338 routines has been prematurely ended.
1340 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1342 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1343 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The
1344 "-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider
1345 quoting the "-", "\-". See L<perlre>.
1347 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1349 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1350 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1351 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1352 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1354 =item fcntl is not implemented
1356 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1357 PDP-11 or something?
1359 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1361 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1362 to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1363 or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1364 the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1366 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1368 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1369 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1370 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1371 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1373 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1375 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1376 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1377 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1380 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1382 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1383 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1384 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1387 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1389 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1390 some time before now. Check your logic flow. flock() operates on
1391 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1394 =item Quantifier follows nothing before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1396 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
1397 meant it literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1398 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1400 =item Format not terminated
1402 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1403 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1405 =item Format %s redefined
1407 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1411 eval "format NAME =...";
1414 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1424 (or something like that).
1426 =item %s found where operator expected
1428 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1429 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1430 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1431 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1433 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1435 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1437 =item gethostent not implemented
1439 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1440 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1443 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1445 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1446 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1448 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1450 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1451 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1453 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1455 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1456 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1457 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1459 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1461 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1462 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1463 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1466 =item glob failed (%s)
1468 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1469 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1470 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1471 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1472 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1473 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1474 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1475 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1476 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1477 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1478 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1480 =item Glob not terminated
1482 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1483 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1484 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1485 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1487 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1489 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1490 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1492 =item goto must have label
1494 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1495 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1497 =item %s had compilation errors
1499 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1501 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1503 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1504 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1505 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1507 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1509 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1510 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1512 =item %s has too many errors
1514 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1515 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1517 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1519 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1520 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1521 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1523 =item Identifier too long
1525 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1526 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1527 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1528 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1530 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1532 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1534 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1536 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1537 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1540 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1542 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1543 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1544 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1545 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1546 to your Perl administrator.
1548 =item Illegal division by zero
1550 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1551 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1554 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1556 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1557 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1558 number stopped before the illegal character.
1560 =item Illegal modulus zero
1562 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1563 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1565 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1567 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1568 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1570 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1572 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1574 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1576 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1577 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1579 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1581 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1582 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1584 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1586 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1587 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1588 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1590 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1592 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1593 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1594 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1597 =item (in cleanup) %s
1599 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1600 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1601 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1602 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1603 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1605 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1606 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1608 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1610 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1611 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1612 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1613 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1614 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1615 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1616 L<perlsec> for more information.
1618 =item Insecure directory in %s
1620 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1621 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1622 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1624 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1626 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1627 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1628 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1629 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1630 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1632 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1634 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1635 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1636 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1637 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1638 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1639 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1640 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1641 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1644 =item Internal disaster before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1646 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1647 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1651 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1653 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1654 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1655 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1656 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1657 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1658 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1660 =item Internal urp before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1662 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The <<<HERE
1663 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1666 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1668 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1669 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1670 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1671 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1673 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1675 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1676 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1678 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1680 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1681 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1683 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1685 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1686 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1688 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1690 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1691 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1693 =item invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1695 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1696 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1698 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1700 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1701 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1702 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1705 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1707 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1708 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1711 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1713 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1715 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1718 =item ioctl is not implemented
1720 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1721 strange for a machine that supports C.
1723 =item `%s' is not a code reference
1725 (W) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant needs
1726 to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1729 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1731 (W) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is unaware of.
1733 =item junk on end of regexp
1735 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1737 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1739 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1740 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1743 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1745 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1746 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1749 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1751 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1752 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1755 =item leaving effective %s failed
1757 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1758 effective uids or gids failed.
1760 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1762 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1763 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1766 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1768 (W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1769 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1770 instead on the filehandle.)
1772 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1774 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1775 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1776 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1778 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented before << HERE in reges m/%s/
1780 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
1781 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The << HERE shows in
1782 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1784 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1786 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1794 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1795 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1796 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1797 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1799 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1801 Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1803 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1805 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1806 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1808 =item %s matches null string many times
1810 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1811 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See
1814 =item % may only be used in unpack
1816 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
1817 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1818 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1820 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1822 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1823 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1825 =item Method %s not permitted
1829 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1831 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1832 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1833 ended earlier on the current line.
1835 =item Misplaced _ in number
1837 (W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1839 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1841 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1842 double-quotish context.
1844 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1846 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1847 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1849 =item Missing command in piped open
1851 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1852 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1855 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1857 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1858 they have a name with which they can be found.
1860 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1862 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1863 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1864 can vary from one line to the next.
1866 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
1868 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1869 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1871 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1873 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1874 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1877 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1879 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1880 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1881 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1883 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1885 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1886 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1887 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1889 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1892 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1894 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
1895 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
1898 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
1899 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
1902 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
1904 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1905 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1908 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
1910 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1911 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
1913 =item Module name must be constant
1915 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1917 =item Module name required with -%c option
1919 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1920 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1921 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
1923 =item msg%s not implemented
1925 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1927 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1929 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
1930 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1932 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
1934 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
1935 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
1936 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1938 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1940 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
1941 must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
1942 of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1944 =item / must follow a numeric type
1946 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
1947 follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1949 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
1951 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
1954 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
1956 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
1957 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
1958 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
1960 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1962 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1963 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1964 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1965 provided for this purpose.
1967 =item Negative length
1969 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
1970 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1972 =item Nested quantifiers before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1974 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1975 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The << HERE shows in the regular
1976 expression about where the problem was discovered.
1978 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
1979 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1982 =item %s never introduced
1984 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
1985 scope before it could possibly have been used.
1987 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1989 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
1990 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
1991 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
1992 securable. See L<perlsec>.
1994 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1996 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1998 =item No comma allowed after %s
2000 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2001 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2002 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2004 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2005 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2006 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2007 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2008 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2009 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2010 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2011 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2012 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2013 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2014 this error was triggered?
2016 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2018 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2019 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2020 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2022 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2024 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2025 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2026 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2027 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2028 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2030 =item No dbm on this machine
2032 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2033 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2035 =item No DBsub routine
2037 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2038 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2039 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2040 ordinary subroutine call.
2042 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2044 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2045 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2046 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2048 =item No input file after < on command line
2050 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2051 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2052 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2056 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2057 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2059 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2061 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2062 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2064 =item No output file after > on command line
2066 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2067 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2068 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2070 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2072 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2073 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2074 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2076 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2078 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2079 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2080 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2082 =item No Perl script found in input
2084 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2085 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2087 =item No setregid available
2089 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2092 =item No setreuid available
2094 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2097 =item No space allowed after -%c
2099 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2100 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2102 =item No %s specified for -%c
2104 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2105 you haven't specified one.
2107 =item No such pipe open
2109 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2110 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2111 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2113 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2115 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2116 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2117 array indices for that to work.
2119 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2121 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2122 not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2123 %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2124 %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2126 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2128 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2129 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2130 names on your system.
2132 =item Not a CODE reference
2134 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2135 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2136 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2139 =item Not a format reference
2141 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2142 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2144 =item Not a GLOB reference
2146 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2147 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2148 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2149 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2151 =item Not a HASH reference
2153 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2154 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2155 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2157 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2159 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2160 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2161 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2163 =item Not a perl script
2165 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2166 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2169 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2171 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2172 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2173 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2175 =item Not a subroutine reference
2177 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2178 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2179 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2182 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2184 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2185 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2187 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2189 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2191 =item Not enough format arguments
2193 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2194 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2198 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2199 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2202 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2204 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2205 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2206 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2207 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2208 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2210 =item Null filename used
2212 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2213 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2215 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2217 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2220 =item Null picture in formline
2222 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2223 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2224 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2228 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2230 =item NULL regexp argument
2232 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2234 =item NULL regexp parameter
2236 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2238 =item Number too long
2240 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2241 about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2242 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2243 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2246 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2248 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2249 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2252 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2254 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2255 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2256 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2258 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2260 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2262 (W) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of arguments.
2263 The arguments should come in pairs.
2265 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2267 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2268 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2270 =item Offset outside string
2272 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2273 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2274 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2275 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2277 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2279 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2280 that isn't open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2282 =item %s() on unopened %s %s
2284 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2285 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2286 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2290 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2294 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2296 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2298 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2299 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2300 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2301 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2303 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2305 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2306 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2307 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2308 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2311 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2313 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2314 in the current lexical scope.
2316 =item Out of memory!
2318 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2319 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2320 no option but to exit immediately.
2322 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2324 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2325 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2326 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2327 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2329 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2331 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2332 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2335 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2336 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2337 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2338 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2339 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2340 where the failed request happened.
2342 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2344 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2345 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2346 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2348 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2350 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2351 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2354 =item @ outside of string
2356 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2357 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2359 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2361 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2362 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2363 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2364 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2368 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2369 page. See L<perlform>.
2373 (P) An internal error.
2375 =item panic: ck_grep
2377 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2379 =item panic: ck_split
2381 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2383 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2385 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2386 there are in the savestack.
2388 =item panic: del_backref
2390 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2395 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2396 it wasn't an eval context.
2398 =item panic: do_match
2400 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2403 =item panic: do_split
2405 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2407 =item panic: do_subst
2409 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2412 =item panic: do_trans
2414 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational
2419 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2423 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2424 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2426 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2428 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2430 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2432 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2434 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2436 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2440 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2441 it wasn't a block context.
2443 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2445 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2448 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2450 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2451 invalid enum on the top of it.
2453 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2455 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2456 references to an object.
2460 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2462 =item panic: mapstart
2464 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2466 =item panic: null array
2468 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2470 =item panic: pad_alloc
2472 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2473 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2475 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2477 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2478 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2480 =item panic: pad_free po
2482 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2484 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2486 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2487 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2489 =item panic: pad_sv po
2491 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2493 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2495 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2496 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2498 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2500 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2502 =item panic: pp_iter
2504 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2506 =item panic: realloc
2508 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2510 =item panic: restartop
2512 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2513 didn't supply the destination.
2517 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2518 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2520 =item panic: scan_num
2522 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2524 =item panic: sv_insert
2526 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2529 =item panic: top_env
2531 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2535 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2537 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2539 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2540 to even) byte length.
2542 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2544 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2550 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2552 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2554 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2556 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2557 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2558 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2560 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2562 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2563 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2565 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2567 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2569 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2570 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2573 are supported and installed on your system.
2574 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2576 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2577 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2578 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2579 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2580 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2581 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2582 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2583 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2584 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2585 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2587 =item Permission denied
2589 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2591 =item pid %x not a child
2593 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2594 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2595 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2597 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
2599 (W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2600 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for
2601 example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not
2602 currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future
2603 extensions and will cause fatal errors.
2605 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
2607 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2608 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future
2609 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2610 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2611 with the backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
2613 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
2615 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2616 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future
2617 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2618 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2619 with the backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
2621 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown
2623 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. See
2626 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2628 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2629 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2631 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2633 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2634 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2635 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2636 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2638 You probably wrote something like this:
2645 when you should have written this:
2652 If you really want comments, build your list the
2653 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2657 'b', # another comment
2660 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2662 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2663 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2664 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2667 You probably wrote something like this:
2671 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2672 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2676 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2678 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2679 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2680 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2681 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2683 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2685 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2686 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2688 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2690 (W deprecated) You have written something like this:
2694 use attrs qw(locked);
2697 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2703 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2704 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2706 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2708 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2712 is now misinterpreted as
2716 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2717 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2718 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2721 =item Premature end of script headers
2725 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2727 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2728 before now. Check your logic flow.
2730 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2732 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2733 before now. Check your logic flow.
2735 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2737 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2738 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2739 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2740 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
2743 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2745 (S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2746 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
2748 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2750 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
2751 {min,max} construct. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
2752 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2754 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2756 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2757 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2758 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2759 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2760 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2762 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2764 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2765 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2766 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2767 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2769 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2771 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2772 before now. Check your logic flow.
2774 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2776 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2778 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2780 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2783 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2785 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2786 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2787 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2789 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2791 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2792 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2794 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
2796 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2797 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2800 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2802 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2803 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2804 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2805 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2807 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2808 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2809 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2810 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2812 =item Reference is already weak
2814 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2815 Doing so has no effect.
2817 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2819 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2820 a reference count of other than 1.
2822 =item Reference to nonexistent group before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2824 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
2825 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
2826 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
2827 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
2829 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2832 =item regexp memory corruption
2834 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2835 expression compiler gave it.
2837 =item Regexp out of space
2839 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2842 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
2844 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2845 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2847 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2849 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2850 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2852 =item Reversed %s= operator
2854 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2855 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2857 =item Runaway format
2859 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2860 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2861 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2862 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2863 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2865 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2867 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2868 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2869 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2870 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2871 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2872 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2873 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2875 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2876 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2877 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2880 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2882 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
2883 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
2884 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
2885 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2886 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2887 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2888 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2890 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
2891 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
2892 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2895 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2897 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2898 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2900 =item Search pattern not terminated
2902 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2903 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2904 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2906 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
2908 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
2909 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2911 =item select not implemented
2913 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2915 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
2917 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
2918 the current implementation.
2920 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2922 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
2923 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2925 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2927 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
2928 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
2930 =item sem%s not implemented
2932 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2934 =item send() on closed socket %s
2936 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
2937 before now. Check your logic flow.
2939 =item Sequence (? incomplete before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
2941 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <<<HERE
2942 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
2945 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex m/%s/
2947 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
2948 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. See L<perlre>.
2950 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
2952 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
2953 has not yet been written. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
2954 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2956 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
2958 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2959 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
2960 where the problem was discovered.
2963 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
2965 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2966 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2968 =item 500 Server error
2974 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
2975 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
2976 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
2977 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
2978 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
2979 produce a valid header".
2981 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2983 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
2984 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
2985 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
2986 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
2987 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
2988 Please see the following for more information:
2990 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2991 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2992 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2993 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2994 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2996 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2998 =item setegid() not implemented
3000 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3001 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3004 =item seteuid() not implemented
3006 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3007 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3010 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3012 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3013 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3016 =item setrgid() not implemented
3018 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3019 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3022 =item setruid() not implemented
3024 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3025 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3028 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3030 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3031 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3032 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3034 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3036 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3037 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3039 =item shm%s not implemented
3041 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3043 =item <> should be quotes
3045 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3048 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3050 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3051 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3052 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3053 probably not what you had in mind.
3055 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3057 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3060 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3062 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3063 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3065 =item sort is now a reserved word
3067 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3068 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3070 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3072 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3073 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3074 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3076 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3078 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3079 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3083 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3084 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3085 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3087 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3089 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3090 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3091 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3092 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3095 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3097 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3098 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3100 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3102 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3103 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3104 C<can> may break this.
3106 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3108 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3112 eval "sub name { ... }";
3115 =item Substitution loop
3117 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3118 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3119 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3120 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3122 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3124 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3125 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3126 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3128 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3130 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3131 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3132 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3134 =item substr outside of string
3136 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3137 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3138 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3139 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3140 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3142 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3144 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3145 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3147 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3149 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3150 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3151 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3152 clustering parentheses:
3154 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3156 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3157 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3159 =item Switch condition not recognized before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3161 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3162 number, it can be only a number. The << HERE shows in the regular expression
3163 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3165 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3167 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3168 and effective uids or gids.
3172 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3174 A keyword is misspelled.
3175 A semicolon is missing.
3177 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3178 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3179 A closing quote is missing.
3181 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3182 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3183 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3184 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3185 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3186 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3187 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3188 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3189 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3192 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3194 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3195 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3200 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3202 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3204 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3205 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3206 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3207 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3209 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3211 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3212 before now. Check your logic flow.
3214 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3216 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3217 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3219 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3221 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3222 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3224 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3226 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3227 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3236 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3237 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3239 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3241 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3242 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3243 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3244 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3247 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3249 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3250 to the probings of Configure.
3252 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3254 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3255 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3256 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3259 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3261 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3263 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3264 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3265 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3266 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3267 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3268 target of the change to
3269 %ENV which produced the warning.
3271 =item times not implemented
3273 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3274 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3276 =item Too few args to syscall
3278 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3279 system call to call, silly dilly.
3281 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3283 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3284 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3285 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3286 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3289 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3290 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3291 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3292 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3294 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3295 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3297 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3299 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3300 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3301 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3303 =item Too late to run %s block
3305 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3306 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3307 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3308 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3311 =item Too many args to syscall
3313 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3315 =item Too many arguments for %s
3317 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3321 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3322 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3326 =item trailing \ in regexp
3328 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3329 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3331 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3333 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3334 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3335 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3337 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3339 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3342 =item truncate not implemented
3344 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3345 Configure knows about.
3347 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3349 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3350 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3351 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3352 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3354 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3356 (W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3357 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3359 =item umask not implemented
3361 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3362 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3364 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3366 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3368 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3370 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3371 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3373 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3375 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3376 many values were temporarily localized.
3378 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3380 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3381 many blocks were entered and left.
3383 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3385 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3386 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3388 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3390 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3391 another package? See L<perlform>.
3393 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3395 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3396 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3398 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3400 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3401 since been undefined.
3403 =item Undefined subroutine called
3405 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3406 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3408 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3410 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3411 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3413 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3415 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3416 another package? See L<perlform>.
3418 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3420 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3421 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3424 =item %s: Undefined variable
3426 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3427 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3429 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3431 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3432 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3435 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3437 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3440 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3442 (F) The condition of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct is not
3443 known. The condition may be lookaround (the condition is true if the
3444 lookaround is true), a (?{...}) construct (the condition is true if the
3445 code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the condition is true if the
3446 set of capturing parentheses named by the number is defined).
3448 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3449 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3451 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3453 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3454 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3455 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3457 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3459 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3460 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3461 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3462 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3464 =item unmatched [ before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3466 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3467 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3468 first. See L<perlre>. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
3469 where the escape was discovered.
3471 =item unmatched ( in regexp before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3473 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3474 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3475 matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3477 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3479 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3480 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3481 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3482 you were last editing.
3484 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3486 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3487 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3488 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3491 =item Unrecognized character %s
3493 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3494 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3495 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3497 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3499 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3500 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3501 understood literally.
3503 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through before << HERE in m/%s/
3505 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3506 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
3507 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
3508 literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the escape
3512 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3514 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3517 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3519 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3520 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3523 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3525 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3526 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3527 bad switch on your behalf.)
3529 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3531 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3532 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3533 PROBABLY because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See
3536 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3538 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3540 =item Unsupported function %s
3542 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3543 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3545 =item Unsupported function fork
3547 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3549 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3550 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3551 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3553 =item Unsupported script encoding
3555 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3556 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3558 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3560 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3561 least that's what Configure thought.
3563 =item Unterminated attribute list
3565 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3566 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3567 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3568 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3570 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3572 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3573 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3574 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3575 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3577 =item Unterminated compressed integer
3579 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3580 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3581 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3583 =item Unterminated <> operator
3585 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3586 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3587 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3588 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3590 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3592 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3593 still valid when C<untie> was called.
3595 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3597 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3598 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3599 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3600 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3601 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3602 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3607 when you meant to say
3609 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3611 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3612 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3617 when you should have said
3621 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3622 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3623 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3624 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3625 L<perlref> for more on this.
3627 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3629 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3631 =item "use" not allowed in expression
3633 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3634 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3636 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3638 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
3639 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3641 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3643 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
3644 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
3645 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3647 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3649 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
3650 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
3651 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
3652 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
3655 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
3656 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
3657 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
3658 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
3661 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3662 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
3663 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
3664 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
3667 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
3668 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3669 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3671 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3673 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3674 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3676 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3678 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
3679 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
3680 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
3681 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3683 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3685 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
3686 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
3687 old way has bad side effects.
3689 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3691 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
3692 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3694 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3696 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
3697 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
3698 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
3699 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
3700 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
3701 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3703 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3705 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
3706 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
3707 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3709 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
3710 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
3711 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
3712 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
3713 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
3714 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
3717 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3719 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
3720 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
3721 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
3722 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
3723 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
3724 C<defined> operator.
3726 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3728 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
3729 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
3730 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
3733 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3735 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
3736 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3737 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
3738 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
3739 front of your variable.
3741 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
3743 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
3744 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
3745 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
3746 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
3747 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
3749 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3751 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
3752 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
3753 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
3754 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
3756 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3758 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3759 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
3760 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3761 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
3762 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
3763 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
3765 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
3766 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
3767 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
3768 between interferes with this feature.
3770 =item Variable syntax
3772 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3773 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3776 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3778 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
3779 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3781 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3782 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
3783 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
3784 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
3785 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
3786 variable will no longer be shared.
3788 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3789 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3790 will I<never> share the given variable.
3792 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3793 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3794 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
3795 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
3797 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3799 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
3800 known at compile time. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3801 the problem was discovered.
3803 =item Version number must be a constant number
3805 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3806 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3809 =item Warning: something's wrong
3811 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3812 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3814 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3816 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
3817 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
3820 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3822 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
3823 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
3824 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
3825 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3829 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3833 but in actual fact, you got
3837 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3839 =item Wide character in %s
3841 (F) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting one.
3843 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
3845 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3846 before now. Check your logic flow.
3848 =item X outside of string
3850 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3851 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3853 =item x outside of string
3855 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3856 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3858 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3860 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3863 =item Xsub called in sort
3865 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3868 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3870 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
3871 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3872 Use a filename instead.
3874 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3876 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3877 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3878 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in the
3879 eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3881 =item You need to quote "%s"
3883 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
3884 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
3885 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
3886 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
3887 what you want, put an & in front.)