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<$^Q> 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 message 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 "no" not allowed in expression
38 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
39 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
41 =item "use" not allowed in expression
43 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
44 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
46 =item % may only be used in unpack
48 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, since the
49 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
50 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
52 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
54 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
55 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
56 found inside the parens. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
58 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
60 (F) The argument to delete() or exists() must be a hash element, such as
65 =item %s did not return a true value
67 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
68 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
69 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
70 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
72 =item %s found where operator expected
74 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
75 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
76 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
77 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
79 =item %s had compilation errors.
81 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
83 =item %s has too many errors.
85 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
86 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
88 =item %s matches null string many times
90 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
91 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
93 =item %s never introduced
95 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
96 before it could possibly have been used.
100 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
102 =item %s: Command not found.
104 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
105 of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
108 =item %s: Expression syntax.
110 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
111 of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
114 =item %s: Undefined variable.
116 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
117 of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
122 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
123 instead of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
126 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
128 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
129 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
131 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
133 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
134 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
136 =item 500 Server error
140 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
142 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
143 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
145 =item @ outside of string
147 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolution position outside
148 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
150 =item accept() on closed fd
152 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
153 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
155 =item Allocation too large: %lx
157 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
159 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
161 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
163 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
165 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
166 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
167 a missing quote, operator, paren pair or declaration.
169 =item Args must match #! line
171 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
172 with match the arguments specified on the #! line.
174 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric
176 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
177 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
178 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
180 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
182 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
183 is now heavily deprecated.
185 =item assertion botched: %s
187 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
189 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
191 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
193 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
195 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
196 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
197 know which context to supply to the right side.
199 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
201 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
202 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
205 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
207 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
208 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
209 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
210 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
213 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
215 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
217 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
219 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
220 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
221 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
222 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
223 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
224 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
226 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
228 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
229 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sized are, respectively,
230 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)> and
231 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
233 =item Bad associative array
235 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
237 =item Bad filehandle: %s
239 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
240 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
241 did it in another package.
243 =item Bad free() ignored
245 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
246 malloc()ed in the first place.
248 =item Bad name after %s::
250 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
251 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
260 $sym = "mypack::$var";
262 =item Bad symbol for array
264 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
265 wasn't a symbol table entry.
267 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
269 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
270 wasn't a symbol table entry.
272 =item Bad symbol for hash
274 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
275 wasn't a symbol table entry.
277 =item Badly places ()'s
279 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
280 of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
283 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
285 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
286 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
288 =item bind() on closed fd
290 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
291 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
293 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
295 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
297 =item Callback called exit
299 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
300 exited by calling exit.
302 =item Can't "last" outside a block
304 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
305 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
306 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
307 "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get the same
308 effect though, since the inner curlies will be considered a block
309 that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
311 =item Can't "next" outside a block
313 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
314 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
315 count as a "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get
316 the same effect though, since the inner curlies will be considered a block
317 that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
319 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
321 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
322 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
323 count as a "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get
324 the same effect though, since the inner curlies will be considered a block
325 that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
327 =item Can't bless non-reference value
329 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
330 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
332 =item Can't break at that line
334 (S) A warning intended for while running within the debugger, indicating
335 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
338 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
340 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
341 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
342 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
344 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
346 (F) A method call must know what package it's supposed to run in. It
347 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
348 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
349 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
351 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
353 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
354 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
355 neither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)
356 Something like this will reproduce the error:
359 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
360 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
362 =item Can't chdir to %s
364 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
365 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
367 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
369 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
370 (type GLOB), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
380 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
382 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
384 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
385 (type GLOB), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
387 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
389 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
390 (type GLOB), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
392 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
394 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
395 or other plumbing problems.
397 =item Can't declare %s in my
399 (F) Only scalar, array and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
400 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
402 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
404 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
406 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
408 (F) You're on a system such as MSDOS that gets confused if you try reading
409 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say B<-i>C<.bak>, or some
412 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s > 14 characters
414 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
416 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
418 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
419 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
421 =item Can't do setegid!
423 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
426 =item Can't do seteuid!
428 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
430 =item Can't do setuid
432 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
433 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
434 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
435 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
436 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
437 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
439 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
441 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
442 without flags is emulated.
444 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m
446 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
447 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
449 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
451 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
452 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
454 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
456 (W) An system(), exec() or piped open call could not execute the named
457 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
458 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
459 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
460 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
461 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
465 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
466 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
467 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
469 =item Can't execute %s
471 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
472 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions.
474 =item Can't find label %s
476 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
477 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
479 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
481 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
482 the closing delimiter was omitted. Since bracketed quotes count nesting
483 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
485 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.)
489 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
491 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
493 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
494 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
495 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
496 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
497 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
498 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
499 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
500 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
501 routine, since the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
502 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
503 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
504 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
505 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
506 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
508 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
510 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
511 can't retrieve its name for later use.
513 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
515 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
516 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
518 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
520 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
521 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
522 you should only be calling it out of an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
525 =item Can't localize a reference
527 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which is not allowed because
528 the compiler can't determine whether $ref will end up pointing to anything
529 with a symbol table entry, and a symbol table entry is necessary to
532 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
534 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previous declared as a
535 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
536 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
539 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
541 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
542 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set
543 the PERL5LIB environment variable to say where the extra library is,
544 or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
545 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
547 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
549 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
550 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
551 method, nor does any of it's base classes. See L<perlobj>.
553 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
555 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
560 (F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while trying to process
561 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
563 =item Can't modify %s in %s
565 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
566 change it, such as with an autoincrement.
568 =item Can't modify non-existent substring
570 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
573 =item Can't msgrcv to readonly var
575 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable in order to be used as a receive
578 =item Can't open %s: %s
580 (S) An inplace edit couldn't open the original file for the indicated reason.
581 Usually this is because you don't have read permission for the file.
583 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
585 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
586 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
587 "open2.pl". Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using ">",
588 and then read it in under a different file handle.
590 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
592 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
593 couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on the command line for
596 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
598 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
599 couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the command line for reading.
601 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
603 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
604 couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on the command line for
607 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
609 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
610 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
612 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
614 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
616 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
618 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
619 you don't have write permission to the directory.
621 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
623 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
624 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
626 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
628 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
631 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
633 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
634 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
636 =item Can't stat script "%s"
638 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
639 it open already. Bizarre.
641 =item Can't swap uid and euid
643 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
646 =item Can't take log of %g
648 (F) Logarithms are only defined on positive real numbers.
650 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
652 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
653 negative number. There's a Complex package available for Perl, though,
654 if you really want to do that.
656 =item Can't undef active subroutine
658 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
659 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
660 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
664 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
665 as the main Perl stack.
667 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
669 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
670 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
671 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
672 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
674 =item Can't upgrade to undef
676 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
677 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
678 code calling sv_upgrade.
680 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
682 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
683 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
684 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
685 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
688 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
690 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
692 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
694 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
695 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
696 test the type of the reference, if need be.
698 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
700 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
701 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
702 to a matched substring is only valid as part of a regular expression pattern.
703 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
704 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
706 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
708 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
709 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
711 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
713 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
714 be a defined value. This helps to de-lurk some insidious errors.
716 =item Can't use delimiter brackets within expression
718 (F) The ${name} construct is for disambiguating identifiers in strings, not
721 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
723 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
724 not allowed, because the magic can only be tied to one location (namely
725 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
726 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
729 =item Can't use subscript on %s
731 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
732 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
733 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
735 =item Can't write to temp file for B<-e>: %s
737 (F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
738 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
740 =item Can't x= to readonly value
742 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
743 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
744 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
746 =item Cannot open temporary file
748 (F) The create routine failed for some reaon while trying to process
749 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
751 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
753 (W) A novice will sometimes say
757 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
758 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
760 =item Close on unopened file <%s>
762 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
764 =item connect() on closed fd
766 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
767 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
769 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
771 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
773 =item corrupted regexp pointers
775 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
776 expression compiler gave it.
778 =item corrupted regexp program
780 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
781 a valid magic number.
783 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
785 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
786 times than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
787 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
788 case it indicates something else.
790 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
792 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
794 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
796 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
797 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
799 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
801 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
802 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
803 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
804 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
805 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
806 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
807 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
808 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
811 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
813 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
815 =item do_study: out of memory
817 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
819 =item Duplicate free() ignored
821 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
824 =item elseif should be elsif
826 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
827 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
828 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
829 unlikely to be what you want.
831 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
833 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
834 The interpreter is immediately exited.
836 =item Error converting file specification %s
838 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Since Perl may have to deal with file
839 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
840 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
841 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
842 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
844 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
846 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
848 =item Exiting eval via %s
850 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
851 a goto, or a loop control statement.
853 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
855 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as a
856 a goto, or a loop control statement.
858 =item Exiting substitution via %s
860 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as a
861 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
863 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
865 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
866 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
867 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
868 the Perl source code is distressed.
870 =item fcntl is not implemented
872 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
875 =item Filehandle %s never opened
877 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
878 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
879 the FileHandle package.
881 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
883 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
884 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
885 "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you only
886 intended to write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
888 =item Filehandle only opened for input
890 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
891 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
892 "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you only
893 intended to write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
895 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
897 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
898 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
899 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
902 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
904 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
905 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
906 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
909 =item Format %s redefined
911 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
915 eval "format NAME =...";
918 =item Format not terminated
920 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
921 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
923 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
933 (or something like that).
935 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
937 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
939 =item gethostent not implemented
941 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
942 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
945 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
947 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
948 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
950 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
952 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
953 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
956 =item Glob not terminated
958 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
959 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
960 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
961 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
963 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
965 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables must
966 either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
967 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
969 =item goto must have label
971 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
972 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
974 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
976 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
977 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
978 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
980 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
982 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
983 is now heavily deprecated.
985 =item Identifier "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
987 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique identifiers. If you
988 had a good reason for having a unique identifier, then just mention it
989 again somehow to suppress the message.
991 =item Illegal division by zero
993 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
994 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
996 =item Illegal modulus zero
998 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
999 don't take to this kindly.
1001 =item Illegal octal digit
1003 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1005 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
1007 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1008 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1010 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1012 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1013 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1014 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1015 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1016 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1017 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1018 for more information.
1020 =item Insecure directory in %s
1022 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1023 script if $ENV{PATH} contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1028 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1029 setgid script if $ENV{PATH} is derived from data supplied (or
1030 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1031 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1033 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1035 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1036 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, in order to determine
1037 whether the current call to C<exec> should be affect the current
1038 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
1039 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1040 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1041 and execute the specified command.
1043 =item internal disaster in regexp
1045 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1047 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1049 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1051 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1053 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1054 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1056 =item ioctl is not implemented
1058 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1059 strange for a machine that supports C.
1061 =item junk on end of regexp
1063 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1065 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1067 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1068 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1069 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1071 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1073 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1074 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1077 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1079 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1080 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1083 =item listen() on closed fd
1085 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1086 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1088 =item Literal @%s now requires backslash
1090 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1091 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was
1092 first used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and
1093 ambiguous instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by putting a
1094 backslash to indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array
1095 within the program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply
1096 assume that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1098 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1100 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1101 doesn't somehow point to a valid method. See L<perlovl>.
1103 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1105 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1106 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1107 ended earlier on the current line.
1109 =item Misplaced _ in number
1111 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1113 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1115 (F) Apparently you've been programming in csh too much. Variables are always
1116 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1117 one line to the next.
1119 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1121 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1122 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1124 =item Missing operator before %s?
1126 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1127 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1129 =item Missing right bracket
1131 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1132 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1135 =item Missing semicolon on previous line?
1137 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1138 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1139 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1141 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1143 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1144 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", since the compiler
1145 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1147 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1150 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1152 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1154 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1155 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1158 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1160 (F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1161 be created for some peculiar reason.
1163 =item Module name must be constant
1165 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1167 =item msg%s not implemented
1169 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1171 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1173 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like $foo[1,2,3]. They're written
1174 like $foo[1][2][3], as in C.
1176 =item Negative length
1178 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1179 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1181 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1183 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parens. So
1184 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1186 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, *?, +? and ?? appear
1187 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1191 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1192 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1194 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1196 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1197 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1198 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1201 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1203 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1205 =item No comma allowed after %s
1207 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1208 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1209 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1211 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1213 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1214 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither you
1215 want to pipe the output from this command.
1217 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1219 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1220 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1221 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1222 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1223 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1226 =item No dbm on this machine
1228 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1229 supply dbm nowadays, since Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1231 =item No DBsub routine
1233 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1234 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1235 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1236 ordinary subroutine call.
1238 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
1240 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1241 and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the
1242 file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1244 =item No input file after < on command line
1246 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1247 and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file from
1248 which to read data for stdin.
1250 =item No output file after > on command line
1252 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1253 and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither
1254 you wanted to redirect stdout.
1256 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
1258 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1259 and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the
1260 file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1262 =item No Perl script found in input
1264 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1265 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1267 =item No setregid available
1269 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1272 =item No setreuid available
1274 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1277 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1279 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1282 =item No such pipe open
1284 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1285 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1286 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1288 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1290 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1291 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1293 =item Not a CODE reference
1295 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1296 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1297 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1298 See also L<perlref>.
1300 =item Not a format reference
1302 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1303 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1305 =item Not a GLOB reference
1307 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "type glob" (that is,
1308 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1309 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1310 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1312 =item Not a HASH reference
1314 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1315 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1316 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1318 =item Not a perl script
1320 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1321 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1324 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1326 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1327 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1328 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1330 =item Not a subroutine reference
1332 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1333 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1334 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1335 See also L<perlref>.
1337 =item Not a subroutine reference in %OVERLOAD
1339 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1340 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<perlovl>.
1342 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1344 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1345 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1346 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1348 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1350 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1352 =item Not enough format arguments
1354 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1357 =item Null filename used
1359 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially since on many machines
1360 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1362 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1364 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1368 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1370 =item NULL regexp argument
1372 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it bigtime.
1374 =item NULL regexp parameter
1376 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1378 =item Odd number of elements in hash list
1380 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash list, which is odd,
1381 since hash lists come in key/value pairs.
1385 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1389 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1391 =item Operation `%s' %s: no method found,
1393 (F) An attempt was made to use an entry in an overloading table that
1394 somehow no longer points to a valid method. See L<perlovl>.
1396 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1398 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1399 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1400 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1401 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1402 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1404 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1406 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1407 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1409 =item Out of memory!
1411 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1412 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1416 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1419 =item panic: ck_grep
1421 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1423 =item panic: ck_split
1425 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1427 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1429 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1430 are in the savestack.
1434 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1435 it wasn't an eval context.
1437 =item panic: do_match
1439 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1441 =item panic: do_split
1443 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1445 =item panic: do_subst
1447 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1449 =item panic: do_trans
1451 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1455 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1456 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1458 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1460 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1462 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1464 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1468 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1469 it wasn't a block context.
1471 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1473 (P) A writable lexical variable became readonly somehow within the scope.
1475 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1477 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1478 invalid enum on the top of it.
1482 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1484 =item panic: mapstart
1486 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1488 =item panic: null array
1490 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1492 =item panic: pad_alloc
1494 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1495 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1497 =item panic: pad_free curpad
1499 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1500 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1502 =item panic: pad_free po
1504 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1506 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
1508 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1509 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1511 =item panic: pad_sv po
1513 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1515 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1517 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1518 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1520 =item panic: pad_swipe po
1522 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1524 =item panic: pp_iter
1526 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1528 =item panic: realloc
1530 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1532 =item panic: restartop
1534 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1535 didn't supply the destination.
1539 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1540 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
1542 =item panic: scan_num
1544 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
1546 =item panic: sv_insert
1548 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
1551 =item panic: top_env
1553 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
1557 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
1559 =item Parens missing around "%s" list
1561 (W) You said something like
1567 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
1569 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
1571 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
1573 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
1574 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
1575 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
1577 =item Permission denied
1579 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
1581 =item pid %d not a child
1583 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
1584 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
1585 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
1587 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
1589 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
1590 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
1592 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
1594 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
1595 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
1596 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
1597 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
1599 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
1601 (S) The old irregular construct
1605 is now misinterpreted as
1609 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
1610 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
1611 parens around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead of "||".
1613 =item print on closed filehandle %s
1615 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
1616 Check your logic flow.
1618 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
1620 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1621 Check your logic flow.
1623 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
1625 (W) The compiler found a bare word where it expected a conditional,
1626 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
1627 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
1631 =item Prototype mismatch: (%s) vs (%s)
1633 (S) The subroutine being defined had a predeclared (forward) declaration
1634 with a different function prototype.
1636 =item Read on closed filehandle <%s>
1638 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
1639 Check your logic flow.
1641 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
1643 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
1645 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
1647 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
1648 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
1649 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
1651 =item Recursive inheritance detected
1653 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
1654 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
1656 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
1658 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
1659 reference count of other than 1.
1661 =item regexp memory corruption
1663 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1664 expression compiler gave it.
1666 =item regexp out of space
1668 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
1670 =item regexp too big
1672 (F) The current implementation of regular expression uses shorts as
1673 address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
1674 the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
1675 Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
1676 way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
1678 =item Reversed %s= operator
1680 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
1681 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
1683 =item Runaway format
1685 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
1686 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
1687 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
1688 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
1689 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
1691 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
1693 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single value of
1694 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1695 The difference is that $foo[&bar] always behaves like a scalar, both when
1696 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while @foo[&bar] behaves
1697 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1698 subscript, which can do weird things if you're only expecting one subscript.
1700 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
1701 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, since
1702 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1705 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
1707 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script with its setuid
1708 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
1710 =item Search pattern not terminated
1712 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
1713 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1715 =item seek() on unopened file
1717 (W) You tried to use the seek() function on a filehandle that was either
1718 never opened or has been closed since.
1720 =item select not implemented
1722 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
1724 =item sem%s not implemented
1726 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
1728 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
1730 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
1731 that had previously been marked as free.
1733 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
1735 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
1736 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
1738 =item Send on closed socket
1740 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
1741 Check your logic flow.
1743 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
1745 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
1746 parenthesis. Embedded parens aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
1748 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
1750 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
1751 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
1753 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
1755 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
1760 Also known as "500 Server error". This is a CGI error, not a Perl
1761 error. You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible
1762 by the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not
1763 the user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
1764 variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
1765 in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
1767 =item setegid() not implemented
1769 (F) You tried to assign to $), and your operating system doesn't support
1770 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1773 =item seteuid() not implemented
1775 (F) You tried to assign to $>, and your operating system doesn't support
1776 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1779 =item setrgid() not implemented
1781 (F) You tried to assign to $(, and your operating system doesn't support
1782 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1785 =item setruid() not implemented
1787 (F) You tried to assign to $<, and your operating system doesn't support
1788 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1791 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
1793 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
1794 because the world might have written on it already.
1796 =item shm%s not implemented
1798 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
1800 =item shutdown() on closed fd
1802 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
1804 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined.
1806 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
1807 put it into the wrong package?
1809 =item sort is now a reserved word
1811 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
1812 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
1814 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
1816 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
1817 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
1818 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1820 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
1822 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
1823 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1827 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
1828 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
1829 See L<perlfunc/split>.
1831 =item Stat on unopened file <%s>
1833 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
1834 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has been closed since.
1836 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
1838 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
1839 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
1840 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
1841 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
1844 =item Subroutine %s redefined
1846 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
1850 eval "sub name { ... }";
1853 =item Substitution loop
1855 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
1856 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
1857 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
1858 L<perlop/"Quote and Quotelike Operators">.
1860 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
1862 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
1863 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1865 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
1867 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
1868 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1870 =item substr outside of string
1872 (W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a string.
1873 That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the length of
1874 the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
1876 =item suidperl is no longer needed since...
1878 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
1879 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
1883 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
1885 A keyword is misspelled.
1886 A semicolon is missing.
1888 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
1889 An opening or closing brace is missing.
1890 A closing quote is missing.
1892 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
1893 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
1894 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
1895 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
1896 before this, since Perl is good at understanding random input.
1897 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
1898 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
1899 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
1900 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
1902 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
1904 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
1905 instead of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
1908 =item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
1910 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm"
1911 or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
1913 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
1915 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1916 Check your logic flow.
1918 =item tell() on unopened file
1920 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
1921 never opened or has been closed since.
1923 =item Test on unopened file <%s>
1925 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
1926 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
1928 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
1930 (F) Assignment to $[ is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
1931 a compiler directive. You may only say one of
1940 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
1941 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
1943 =item The %s function is unimplemented
1945 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
1946 to the probings of Configure.
1948 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
1950 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
1951 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
1952 think the U.S. Govermnment thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
1953 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
1956 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
1958 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
1959 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
1960 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
1962 =item times not implemented
1964 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
1965 you're not running on Unix.
1967 =item Too few args to syscall
1969 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
1970 system call to call, silly dilly.
1976 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
1977 of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
1980 =item Too many args to syscall
1982 (F) Perl only supports a maximum of 14 args to syscall().
1984 =item Too many arguments for %s
1986 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
1988 =item trailing \ in regexp
1990 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
1993 =item Translation pattern not terminated
1995 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
1998 =item Translation replacement not terminated
2000 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2003 =item truncate not implemented
2005 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2006 Configure knows about.
2008 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2010 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2011 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or @{EXPR}. Hashes must be
2012 %NAME or %{EXPR}. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2013 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2015 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2017 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, since octal literals
2018 always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2020 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2022 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2024 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2026 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2027 contexts were entered and left.
2029 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2031 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2032 values were temporarily localized.
2034 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2036 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2037 were entered and left.
2039 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2041 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2042 scalars were allocated and freed.
2044 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2046 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2047 another package? See L<perlform>.
2049 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2051 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2052 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2054 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2056 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2057 has since been undefined.
2059 =item Undefined subroutine called
2061 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2062 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2064 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2066 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2067 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2069 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2071 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2072 another package? See L<perlform>.
2074 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2076 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2077 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2079 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2081 (F) There are no byteswapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2083 =item unmatched () in regexp
2085 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2086 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2087 the matching paren. See L<perlre>.
2089 =item Unmatched right bracket
2091 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2092 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2093 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2096 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2098 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2099 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2102 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2104 (W) You used a bare word that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2105 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2106 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2108 =item Unrecognized character \%03o ignored
2110 (S) A garbage character was found in the input, and ignored, in case it's
2111 a weird control character on an EBCDIC machine, or some such.
2113 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2115 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2116 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2118 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s
2120 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2121 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2122 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2124 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2126 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2127 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2128 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chop>.
2130 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2132 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2134 =item Unsupported function %s
2136 (F) This machines doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2137 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2139 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2141 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2142 least that's what Configure thought.
2144 =item Unterminated <> operator
2146 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2147 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2148 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2149 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2151 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2153 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined awk feature.
2154 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2156 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2158 (D) This variable magically turned on multiline pattern matching, both for
2159 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2160 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2161 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2163 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2165 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible only
2166 from C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2168 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2170 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2171 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2174 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
2176 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2177 wish to use a blank line as the terminator of the here-document.
2179 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2181 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2182 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2183 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2185 =item Use of uninitialized value
2187 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2188 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2189 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2191 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2193 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2194 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2195 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2196 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2197 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2198 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2202 when you meant to say
2204 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2206 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2207 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2212 when you should have said
2216 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2217 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2218 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2219 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2220 L<perlref> for more on this.
2222 =item Variable "%s" is not exported
2224 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2225 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2226 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2227 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2228 on the front of your variable.
2230 =item Variable syntax.
2232 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2233 of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
2236 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly.
2238 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
2239 close(0. This usually indicates your filesystem ran out of disk space.
2241 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parens is ambiguous
2243 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2244 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2245 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2246 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2250 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
2254 but in actual fact, you got
2258 So put in parens to say what you really mean.
2260 =item Write on closed filehandle
2262 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2263 Check your logic flow.
2265 =item X outside of string
2267 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
2268 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2270 =item x outside of string
2272 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
2273 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2275 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
2277 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2279 =item Xsub called in sort
2281 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2283 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
2285 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
2286 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
2287 Use a filename instead.
2289 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
2291 (F) And you probably never will, since you probably don't have the
2292 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
2293 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
2294 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
2296 =item You need to quote "%s"
2298 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
2299 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
2300 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
2301 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
2303 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
2305 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
2306 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2307 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2309 =item \1 better written as $1
2311 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
2312 of backslashes is grandfathered on the righthand side of a
2313 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
2314 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
2315 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
2317 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
2319 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2320 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
2321 '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
2323 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
2325 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2326 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
2327 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
2328 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
2331 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";