3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (non-trappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that will be
20 called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
24 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
25 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
26 The symbols C<"%-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
30 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
32 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34 if you want to localize a package variable.
36 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope
38 (S) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectively
39 eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always
40 a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
41 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
44 =item "no" not allowed in expression
46 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
49 =item "use" not allowed in expression
51 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
54 =item % may only be used in unpack
56 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
57 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
58 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
60 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
62 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
63 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
64 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
66 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
68 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
73 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
75 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
80 or a hash slice, such as
82 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
83 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
85 =item %s did not return a true value
87 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
88 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
89 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
90 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
92 =item %s found where operator expected
94 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
95 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
96 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
97 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
99 =item %s had compilation errors
101 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
103 =item %s has too many errors
105 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
106 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
108 =item %s matches null string many times
110 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
111 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
113 =item %s never introduced
115 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
116 before it could possibly have been used.
120 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
122 =item %s: Command not found
124 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
125 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
128 =item %s: Expression syntax
130 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
131 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
134 =item %s: Undefined variable
136 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
137 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
142 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
143 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
146 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
148 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
149 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
151 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
153 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
154 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
156 =item 500 Server error
160 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
162 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
163 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
165 =item @ outside of string
167 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
168 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
170 =item accept() on closed fd
172 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
173 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
175 =item Allocation too large: %lx
177 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
179 =item Allocation too large
181 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes.
183 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
185 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
187 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
189 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
190 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
191 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
193 =item Args must match #! line
195 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
196 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
197 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
198 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
200 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
202 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
203 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
204 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
206 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
208 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
209 is now heavily deprecated.
211 =item assertion botched: %s
213 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
215 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
217 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
219 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
221 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
222 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
223 know which context to supply to the right side.
225 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
227 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
228 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
231 =item Attempt to free non-existent shared string
233 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
234 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
235 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
236 that can no longer be found in the table.
238 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
240 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
241 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
242 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
243 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
246 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
248 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
250 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
252 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
253 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
254 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
255 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
256 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
257 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
259 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
261 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
262 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
263 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
265 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
267 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
268 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
269 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
270 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
272 =item Bad filehandle: %s
274 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
275 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
276 did it in another package.
278 =item Bad free() ignored
280 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
281 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
282 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
284 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
285 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
286 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
291 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
293 =item Bad name after %s::
295 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
296 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
305 $sym = "mypack::$var";
307 =item Bad symbol for array
309 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
310 wasn't a symbol table entry.
312 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
314 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
315 wasn't a symbol table entry.
317 =item Bad symbol for hash
319 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
320 wasn't a symbol table entry.
322 =item Badly placed ()'s
324 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
325 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
328 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
330 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
331 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
333 =item bind() on closed fd
335 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
336 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
338 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
340 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
342 =item Callback called exit
344 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
345 exited by calling exit.
347 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
349 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
350 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
351 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
352 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
354 =item Can't "last" outside a block
356 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
357 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
358 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
359 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
360 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
361 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
363 =item Can't "next" outside a block
365 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
366 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
367 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
368 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
369 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
371 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
373 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
374 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
375 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
376 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
377 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
379 =item Can't bless non-reference value
381 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
382 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
384 =item Can't break at that line
386 (S) A warning intended for while running within the debugger, indicating
387 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
390 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
392 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
393 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
394 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
396 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
398 (F) A method call must know what package it's supposed to run in. It
399 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
400 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
401 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
403 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
405 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
406 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
407 neither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)
408 Something like this will reproduce the error:
411 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
412 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
414 =item Can't chdir to %s
416 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
417 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
419 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
421 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
422 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
432 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
434 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
436 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
437 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
439 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
441 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
442 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
444 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
446 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
447 or other plumbing problems.
449 =item Can't declare %s in my
451 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
452 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
454 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
456 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
458 =item Can't do in-place edit without backup
460 (F) You're on a system such as MSDOS that gets confused if you try reading
461 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say B<-i>C<.bak>, or some
464 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
466 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
468 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
470 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
471 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
473 =item Can't do setegid!
475 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
478 =item Can't do seteuid!
480 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
482 =item Can't do setuid
484 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
485 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
486 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
487 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
488 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
489 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
491 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
493 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
494 without flags is emulated.
496 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
498 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
499 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
501 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
503 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
504 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
506 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
508 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
509 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
510 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
511 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
512 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
513 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
517 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
518 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
519 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
521 =item Can't execute %s
523 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
524 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions.
526 =item Can't find label %s
528 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
529 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
531 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
533 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
534 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
535 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
537 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.)
541 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
543 =item Unsupported function fork
545 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
547 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
548 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
549 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
551 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
553 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
554 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
555 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
556 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
557 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
558 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
559 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
560 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
561 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
562 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
563 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
564 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
565 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
566 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
568 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
570 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
571 can't retrieve its name for later use.
573 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
575 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
576 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
578 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
580 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
581 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
582 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
585 =item Can't localize a reference
587 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which is not allowed because
588 the compiler can't determine whether $ref will end up pointing to anything
589 with a symbol table entry, and a symbol table entry is necessary to
592 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
594 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
595 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
596 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
599 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
601 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
602 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set
603 the PERL5LIB environment variable to say where the extra library is,
604 or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
605 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
607 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
609 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
610 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
611 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
613 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
615 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
620 (F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while trying to process
621 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
623 =item Can't modify %s in %s
625 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
626 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
628 =item Can't modify non-existent substring
630 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
633 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
635 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
638 =item Can't open %s: %s
640 (S) An inplace edit couldn't open the original file for the indicated reason.
641 Usually this is because you don't have read permission for the file.
643 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
645 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
646 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
647 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
648 and then read it in under a different file handle.
650 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
652 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
653 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
654 command line for writing.
656 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
658 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
659 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
661 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
663 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
664 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
667 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
669 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
670 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
672 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
674 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
676 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
678 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
679 you don't have write permission to the directory.
681 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
683 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
684 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
686 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
688 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
691 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
693 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
694 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
696 =item Can't stat script "%s"
698 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
699 it open already. Bizarre.
701 =item Can't swap uid and euid
703 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
706 =item Can't take log of %g
708 (F) Logarithms are defined on only positive real numbers.
710 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
712 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
713 negative number. There's a Complex package available for Perl, though,
714 if you really want to do that.
716 =item Can't undef active subroutine
718 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
719 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
720 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
724 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
725 as the main Perl stack.
727 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
729 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
730 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
731 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
732 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
734 =item Can't upgrade to undef
736 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
737 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
738 code calling sv_upgrade.
740 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
742 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
743 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
744 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
745 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
748 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
750 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
752 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
754 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
755 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
756 test the type of the reference, if need be.
758 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
760 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
761 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
762 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
763 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
764 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
766 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
768 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
769 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
771 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
773 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
774 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
776 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
778 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
779 be a defined value. This helps to de-lurk some insidious errors.
781 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
783 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
784 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
785 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
786 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
789 =item Can't use subscript on %s
791 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
792 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
793 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
795 =item Can't write to temp file for B<-e>: %s
797 (F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
798 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
800 =item Can't x= to read-only value
802 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
803 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
804 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
806 =item Cannot open temporary file
808 (F) The create routine failed for some reason while trying to process
809 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
811 =item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
813 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
814 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
815 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
817 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
819 (W) A novice will sometimes say
823 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
824 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
826 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
828 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
830 =item connect() on closed fd
832 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
833 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
835 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
837 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
838 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
841 =item Copy method did not return a reference
843 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
845 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
847 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
849 =item corrupted regexp pointers
851 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
852 expression compiler gave it.
854 =item corrupted regexp program
856 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
857 a valid magic number.
859 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
861 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
862 times than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
863 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
864 case it indicates something else.
866 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
868 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
870 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
872 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
873 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
877 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
878 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
880 =item Do you need to pre-declare %s?
882 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
883 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
884 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
885 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
886 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
887 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
888 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
889 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
892 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
894 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
896 =item do_study: out of memory
898 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
900 =item Duplicate free() ignored
902 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
905 =item elseif should be elsif
907 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
908 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
909 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
910 unlikely to be what you want.
912 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
914 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
915 The interpreter is immediately exited.
917 =item Error converting file specification %s
919 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
920 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
921 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
922 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
923 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
925 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
927 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
929 =item Exiting eval via %s
931 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
932 a goto, or a loop control statement.
934 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
936 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
937 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
938 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
940 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
942 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
943 a goto, or a loop control statement.
945 =item Exiting substitution via %s
947 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
948 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
950 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
952 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
953 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
954 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
955 the Perl source code is distressed.
957 =item fcntl is not implemented
959 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
962 =item Filehandle %s never opened
964 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
965 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
966 the FileHandle package.
968 =item Filehandle %s opened for only input
970 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
971 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
972 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
973 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
976 =item Filehandle opened for only input
978 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
979 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
980 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
981 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
984 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
986 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
987 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
988 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
991 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
993 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
994 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
995 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
998 =item Format %s redefined
1000 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1004 eval "format NAME =...";
1007 =item Format not terminated
1009 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1010 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1012 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1022 (or something like that).
1024 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1026 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1028 =item gethostent not implemented
1030 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1031 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1034 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1036 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1037 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1039 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1041 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1042 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1045 =item Glob not terminated
1047 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1048 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1049 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1050 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1052 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1054 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables must
1055 either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1056 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1058 =item goto must have label
1060 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1061 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1063 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1065 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1066 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1067 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1069 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1071 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1072 is now heavily deprecated.
1074 =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
1076 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
1077 to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
1078 names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
1079 appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
1080 might directly modify logical name tables and introduce non-standard names,
1081 or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
1083 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1085 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1086 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1087 here documents (e.g. C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>). Note that Perl always
1088 opens scripts in text mode, so this error should only occur in C<eval>.
1090 =item Illegal division by zero
1092 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1093 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1095 =item Illegal modulus zero
1097 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1098 don't take to this kindly.
1100 =item Illegal octal digit
1102 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1104 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
1106 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1107 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1109 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1111 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1112 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1113 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1114 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1115 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1116 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1117 for more information.
1119 =item Insecure directory in %s
1121 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1122 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1127 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1128 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> is derived from data supplied (or
1129 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1130 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1132 =item Integer overflow in hex number
1134 (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
1135 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
1138 =item Integer overflow in octal number
1140 (S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
1141 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
1144 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1146 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1147 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1148 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1149 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
1150 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1151 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1152 and execute the specified command.
1154 =item internal disaster in regexp
1156 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1158 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1160 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1162 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1164 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1165 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1167 =item ioctl is not implemented
1169 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1170 strange for a machine that supports C.
1172 =item junk on end of regexp
1174 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1176 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1178 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1179 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1180 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1182 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1184 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1185 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1188 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1190 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1191 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1194 =item listen() on closed fd
1196 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1197 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1199 =item Literal @%s now requires backslash
1201 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1202 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was
1203 first used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and
1204 ambiguous instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by putting a
1205 backslash to indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array
1206 within the program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply
1207 assume that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1209 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1211 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1212 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1214 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1216 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1217 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1218 ended earlier on the current line.
1220 =item Misplaced _ in number
1222 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1224 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1226 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1227 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1228 one line to the next.
1230 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1232 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1233 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1235 =item Missing operator before %s?
1237 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1238 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1240 =item Missing right bracket
1242 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1243 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1246 =item Missing semicolon on previous line?
1248 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1249 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1250 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1252 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1254 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1255 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1256 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1258 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1261 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1263 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1265 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1266 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1269 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1271 (F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1272 be created for some peculiar reason.
1274 =item Module name must be constant
1276 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1278 =item msg%s not implemented
1280 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1282 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1284 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1285 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1287 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1289 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names. If you
1290 had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1291 again somehow to suppress the message (the C<use vars> pragma is
1292 provided for just this purpose).
1294 =item Negative length
1296 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1297 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1299 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1301 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1302 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1304 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1305 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1309 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1310 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1312 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1314 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1315 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1316 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1319 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1321 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1323 =item No comma allowed after %s
1325 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1326 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1327 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1329 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1330 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1331 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1332 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1333 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1334 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1335 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1336 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1337 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1338 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1339 this error was triggered?
1341 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1343 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1344 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither you
1345 want to pipe the output from this command.
1347 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1349 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1350 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1351 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1352 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1353 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1356 =item No dbm on this machine
1358 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1359 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1361 =item No DBsub routine
1363 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1364 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1365 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1366 ordinary subroutine call.
1368 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1370 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1371 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1372 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1374 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1376 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1377 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1378 from which to read data for stdin.
1380 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1382 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1383 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1384 whither you wanted to redirect stdout.
1386 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1388 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1389 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1390 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1392 =item No Perl script found in input
1394 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1395 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1397 =item No setregid available
1399 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1402 =item No setreuid available
1404 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1407 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1409 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1412 =item No such pipe open
1414 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1415 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1416 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1418 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1420 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1421 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1423 =item Not a CODE reference
1425 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1426 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1427 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1428 See also L<perlref>.
1430 =item Not a format reference
1432 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1433 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1435 =item Not a GLOB reference
1437 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1438 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1439 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1440 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1442 =item Not a HASH reference
1444 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1445 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1446 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1448 =item Not a perl script
1450 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1451 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1454 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1456 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1457 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1458 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1460 =item Not a subroutine reference
1462 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1463 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1464 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1465 See also L<perlref>.
1467 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1469 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1470 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1472 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1474 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1475 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1476 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1478 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1480 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1482 =item Not enough format arguments
1484 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1487 =item Null filename used
1489 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1490 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1492 =item Null picture in formline
1494 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1495 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1496 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1498 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1500 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1504 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1506 =item NULL regexp argument
1508 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1510 =item NULL regexp parameter
1512 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1514 =item Odd number of elements in hash list
1516 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash list, which is odd,
1517 because hash lists come in key/value pairs.
1519 =item Offset outside string
1521 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1522 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1523 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1524 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1528 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1532 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1534 =item Operation `%s': no method found,%s
1536 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1537 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1538 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1539 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1540 true. See L<overload>.
1542 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1544 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1545 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1546 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1547 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1548 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1550 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1552 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1553 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1555 =item Out of memory!
1557 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1558 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1560 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1561 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1562 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1563 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
1564 error is trappable I<once>.
1566 =item Out of memory during request for %s
1568 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1569 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1570 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1571 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1575 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1578 =item panic: ck_grep
1580 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1582 =item panic: ck_split
1584 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1586 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1588 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1589 are in the savestack.
1593 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1594 it wasn't an eval context.
1596 =item panic: do_match
1598 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1600 =item panic: do_split
1602 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1604 =item panic: do_subst
1606 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1608 =item panic: do_trans
1610 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1614 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1615 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1617 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1619 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1621 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1623 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1627 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1628 it wasn't a block context.
1630 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1632 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
1634 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1636 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1637 invalid enum on the top of it.
1641 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1643 =item panic: mapstart
1645 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1647 =item panic: null array
1649 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1651 =item panic: pad_alloc
1653 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1654 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1656 =item panic: pad_free curpad
1658 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1659 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1661 =item panic: pad_free po
1663 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1665 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
1667 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1668 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1670 =item panic: pad_sv po
1672 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1674 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1676 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1677 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1679 =item panic: pad_swipe po
1681 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1683 =item panic: pp_iter
1685 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1687 =item panic: realloc
1689 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1691 =item panic: restartop
1693 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1694 didn't supply the destination.
1698 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1699 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
1701 =item panic: scan_num
1703 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
1705 =item panic: sv_insert
1707 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
1710 =item panic: top_env
1712 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
1716 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
1718 =item Pareneses missing around "%s" list
1720 (W) You said something like
1726 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
1728 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
1730 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
1732 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
1733 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
1734 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
1736 =item Permission denied
1738 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
1740 =item pid %d not a child
1742 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
1743 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
1744 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
1746 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
1748 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
1749 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
1751 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
1753 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
1754 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
1755 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
1756 exclamation marks parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1759 You probably wrote something like this:
1766 when you should have written this:
1773 If you really want comments, build your list the
1774 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
1778 'b', # another comment
1781 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
1783 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
1784 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
1785 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1788 You probably wrote something like this:
1792 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
1793 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
1797 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
1799 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
1800 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
1801 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
1802 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
1804 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
1806 (S) The old irregular construct
1810 is now misinterpreted as
1814 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
1815 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
1816 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead of "||".
1818 =item print on closed filehandle %s
1820 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
1821 Check your logic flow.
1823 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
1825 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1826 Check your logic flow.
1828 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
1830 (W) The compiler found a bare word where it expected a conditional,
1831 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
1832 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
1836 =item Prototype mismatch: (%s) vs (%s)
1838 (S) The subroutine being defined had a pre-declared (forward) declaration
1839 with a different function prototype.
1841 =item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
1843 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
1844 Check your logic flow.
1846 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
1848 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
1850 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
1852 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
1853 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
1854 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
1856 =item Recursive inheritance detected
1858 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
1859 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
1861 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
1863 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
1864 reference count of other than 1.
1866 =item regexp memory corruption
1868 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1869 expression compiler gave it.
1871 =item regexp out of space
1873 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
1875 =item regexp too big
1877 (F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
1878 address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
1879 the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
1880 Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
1881 way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
1883 =item Reversed %s= operator
1885 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
1886 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
1888 =item Runaway format
1890 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
1891 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
1892 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
1893 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
1894 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
1896 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
1898 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
1899 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1900 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
1901 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
1902 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1903 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
1905 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
1906 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
1907 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1910 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
1912 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
1913 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1914 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
1915 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
1916 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1917 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
1919 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
1920 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
1921 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1924 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
1926 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script with its setuid
1927 or setgid bit not set. This doesn't make much sense.
1929 =item Search pattern not terminated
1931 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
1932 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1934 =item seek() on unopened file
1936 (W) You tried to use the seek() function on a filehandle that was either
1937 never opened or has been closed since.
1939 =item select not implemented
1941 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
1943 =item sem%s not implemented
1945 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
1947 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
1949 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
1950 that had previously been marked as free.
1952 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
1954 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
1955 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
1957 =item Send on closed socket
1959 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
1960 Check your logic flow.
1962 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
1964 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
1965 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
1967 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
1969 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
1970 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
1972 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
1974 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
1979 Also known as "500 Server error". This is a CGI error, not a Perl
1980 error. You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible
1981 by the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not
1982 the user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
1983 variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
1984 in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
1986 =item setegid() not implemented
1988 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
1989 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1992 =item seteuid() not implemented
1994 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
1995 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1998 =item setrgid() not implemented
2000 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2001 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2004 =item setruid() not implemented
2006 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2007 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2010 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2012 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2013 because the world might have written on it already.
2015 =item shm%s not implemented
2017 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2019 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2021 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2023 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2025 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2026 put it into the wrong package?
2028 =item sort is now a reserved word
2030 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2031 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2033 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2035 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2036 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2037 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2039 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2041 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2042 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2046 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2047 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2048 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2050 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2052 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2053 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has been closed since.
2055 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2057 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2058 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2059 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2060 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2063 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2065 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2066 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2069 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2071 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2075 eval "sub name { ... }";
2078 =item Substitution loop
2080 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2081 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2082 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2083 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2085 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2087 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2088 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2090 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2092 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2093 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2095 =item substr outside of string
2097 (W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a string.
2098 That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the length of
2099 the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
2101 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2103 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2104 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2108 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2110 A keyword is misspelled.
2111 A semicolon is missing.
2113 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2114 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2115 A closing quote is missing.
2117 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2118 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2119 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2120 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2121 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2122 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2123 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2124 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2125 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2127 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2129 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2130 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2133 =item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
2135 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm",
2136 or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
2138 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2140 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2141 Check your logic flow.
2143 =item tell() on unopened file
2145 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2146 never opened or has been closed since.
2148 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2150 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2151 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2153 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2155 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2156 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2165 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2166 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2168 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2170 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2171 to the probings of Configure.
2173 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2175 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2176 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2177 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2178 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2181 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2183 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2184 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2185 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2187 =item times not implemented
2189 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2190 you're not running on Unix.
2192 =item Too few args to syscall
2194 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2195 system call to call, silly dilly.
2197 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option (try putting it first)
2199 (X) The #! line in a Perl script contains the B<-T> option, but Perl
2200 was not invoked with B<-T> in its argument list. Due to the way Perl
2201 handles tainting, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a script, it's
2202 too late to properly taint everything from the environment. So Perl
2205 This error can usually be fixed by editing the #! line so that the
2206 B<-T> option is in the Perl program's first argument. (Many operating
2207 systems that implement the #! feature only pick up one argument from
2208 it, so Perl has to get the rest on its own.)
2214 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2215 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2218 =item Too many args to syscall
2220 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2222 =item Too many arguments for %s
2224 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2226 =item trailing \ in regexp
2228 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2231 =item Translation pattern not terminated
2233 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2236 =item Translation replacement not terminated
2238 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2241 =item truncate not implemented
2243 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2244 Configure knows about.
2246 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2248 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2249 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2250 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2251 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2253 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2255 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal literals
2256 always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2258 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2260 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2262 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2264 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2265 contexts were entered and left.
2267 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2269 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2270 values were temporarily localized.
2272 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2274 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2275 were entered and left.
2277 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2279 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2280 scalars were allocated and freed.
2282 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2284 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2285 another package? See L<perlform>.
2287 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2289 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2290 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2292 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2294 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2295 has since been undefined.
2297 =item Undefined subroutine called
2299 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2300 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2302 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2304 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2305 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2307 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2309 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2310 another package? See L<perlform>.
2312 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2314 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2315 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2317 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2319 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2321 =item unmatched () in regexp
2323 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2324 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2325 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2327 =item Unmatched right bracket
2329 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2330 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2331 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2334 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2336 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2337 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2340 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2342 (W) You used a bare word that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2343 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2344 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2346 =item Unrecognized character \%03o ignored
2348 (S) A garbage character was found in the input, and ignored, in case it's
2349 a weird control character on an EBCDIC machine, or some such.
2351 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2353 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2354 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2356 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s
2358 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2359 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2360 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2362 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2364 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2365 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2366 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chop>.
2368 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2370 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2372 =item Unsupported function %s
2374 (F) This machines doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2375 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2377 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2379 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2380 least that's what Configure thought.
2382 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
2384 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2385 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2386 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2387 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2389 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2391 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
2392 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2394 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2396 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
2397 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2398 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2399 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2401 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2403 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2404 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2406 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2408 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2409 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2412 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
2414 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2415 wish to use a blank line as the terminator of the here-document.
2417 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2419 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2420 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2421 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2423 =item Use of uninitialized value
2425 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2426 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2427 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2429 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2431 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2432 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2433 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2434 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2435 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2436 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2440 when you meant to say
2442 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2444 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2445 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2450 when you should have said
2454 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2455 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2456 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2457 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2458 L<perlref> for more on this.
2460 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
2462 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
2463 valid when C<untie> was called.
2465 =item Value of %s construct can be "0"; test with defined()
2467 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), or
2468 C<readdir> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
2469 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which
2470 is probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in
2471 conditional expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
2473 =item Variable "%s" is not exported
2475 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2476 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2477 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2478 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2479 on the front of your variable.
2481 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
2483 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
2484 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
2485 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
2486 the outermost subroutine. For example:
2488 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
2490 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
2491 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
2492 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
2493 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
2494 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
2495 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
2498 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
2499 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
2500 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
2501 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
2503 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
2505 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
2506 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
2508 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
2509 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
2510 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
2511 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
2512 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
2513 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
2515 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
2516 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
2517 will I<never> share the given variable.
2519 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
2520 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
2521 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
2522 they are automatically re-bound to the current values of such
2525 =item Variable syntax
2527 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2528 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2531 =item Warning: something's wrong
2533 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
2534 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
2536 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
2538 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
2539 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
2541 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
2543 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2544 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2545 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2546 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2550 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
2554 but in actual fact, you got
2558 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
2560 =item Write on closed filehandle
2562 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2563 Check your logic flow.
2565 =item X outside of string
2567 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
2568 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2570 =item x outside of string
2572 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
2573 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2575 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
2577 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2579 =item Xsub called in sort
2581 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2583 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
2585 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
2586 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
2587 Use a filename instead.
2589 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
2591 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
2592 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
2593 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
2594 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
2596 =item You need to quote "%s"
2598 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
2599 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
2600 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
2601 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
2603 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
2605 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
2606 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2607 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2609 =item \1 better written as $1
2611 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
2612 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
2613 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
2614 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
2615 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
2617 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
2619 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2620 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
2621 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
2623 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
2625 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2626 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
2627 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
2628 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
2631 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
2638 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2640 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2641 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2643 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2645 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2653 with non-empty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2654 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may appear
2655 if components are not found, or are too long. See L<perlos2/"PERLLIB_PREFIX">.
2657 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2659 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2660 C<sh>-shell in. See L<perlos2/"PERL_SH_DIR">.
2662 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2664 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2665 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2666 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2667 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See L<perlos2/"Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT">.