3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
141 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
143 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
149 or a hash or array slice, such as:
151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
154 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
156 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
157 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
162 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
166 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
168 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
169 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
170 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
171 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
172 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
173 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
175 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
177 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
178 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
180 =item assertion botched: %s
182 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
184 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
186 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
188 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
190 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
191 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
192 know which context to supply to the right side.
194 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
196 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
197 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
198 Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
199 created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
200 thread. See L<threads>.
202 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
204 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
205 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
207 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
209 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
210 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
211 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
217 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
219 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
220 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
223 bless $self, "$proto";
225 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
227 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
228 which is not in its key set.
230 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
232 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
233 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
235 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
237 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
238 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
239 outside any of those arenas.
241 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
243 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
244 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
245 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
246 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
248 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
250 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
251 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
252 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
253 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
256 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
258 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
260 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
262 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
263 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
264 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
265 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
266 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
267 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
270 =item Attempt to join self
272 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
273 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
274 to move the join() to some other thread.
276 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
278 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
279 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
280 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
281 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
282 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
285 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
287 (W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
288 can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
289 of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
291 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
294 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
296 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
297 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
298 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
300 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
302 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
303 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
304 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
305 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
307 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
309 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
310 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
311 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
313 =item Bad filehandle: %s
315 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
316 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
317 open(), or did it in another package.
319 =item Bad free() ignored
321 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
322 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
323 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
325 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
326 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
327 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
331 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
333 =item Badly placed ()'s
335 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
336 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
339 =item Bad name after %s::
341 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
342 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
351 $sym = "mypack::$var";
353 =item Bad realloc() ignored
355 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
356 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
357 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
359 =item Bad symbol for array
361 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
362 wasn't a symbol table entry.
364 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
366 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
367 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
369 =item Bad symbol for hash
371 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
372 wasn't a symbol table entry.
374 =item Bareword found in conditional
376 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
377 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
378 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
382 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
385 use constant TYPO => 1;
386 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
388 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
390 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
392 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
393 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
394 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
396 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
398 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
399 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
400 you need to predeclare a package?
402 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
404 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
405 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
408 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
410 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
411 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
412 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
413 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
414 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
416 =item \1 better written as $1
418 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
419 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
420 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
421 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
422 there are more than 9 backreferences.
424 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
426 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
427 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
428 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
430 =item bind() on closed socket %s
432 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
433 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
435 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
437 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
438 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
440 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
442 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
444 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
446 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
449 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
451 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
452 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
453 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
455 =item Callback called exit
457 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
458 exited by calling exit.
460 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
462 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
463 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
464 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
465 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
466 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
467 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
468 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
469 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
471 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
473 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
474 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
475 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
476 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
478 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
480 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
481 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
483 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
485 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
486 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
487 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
489 =item Can't bless non-reference value
491 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
492 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
494 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
496 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
497 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
498 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
500 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
502 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
503 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
504 like this will reproduce the error:
507 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
508 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
510 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
512 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
513 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
514 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
515 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
517 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
519 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
520 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
521 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
522 Something like this will reproduce the error:
525 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
526 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
528 =item Can't chdir to %s
530 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
531 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
533 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
535 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
538 =item Can't coerce array into hash
540 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
541 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
542 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
544 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
546 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
547 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
557 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
559 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
561 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
562 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
564 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
566 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
567 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
569 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
571 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
572 quotas or other plumbing problems.
574 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
576 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
577 class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be
578 extended for other types of variables in future.
580 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
582 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
583 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
585 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
587 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
588 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
590 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
592 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
595 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
597 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
598 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
599 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
601 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
603 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
604 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
605 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
607 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
609 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
610 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
611 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
613 =item Can't do setegid!
615 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
618 =item Can't do seteuid!
620 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
622 =item Can't do setuid
624 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
625 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
626 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
627 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
628 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
629 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
631 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
633 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
634 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
636 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
638 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
639 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
642 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
644 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
645 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
646 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
647 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
649 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
651 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
652 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
653 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
654 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
655 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
656 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
661 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
662 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
663 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
665 =item Can't execute %s
667 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
668 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
670 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
672 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
673 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
675 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
677 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
678 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
679 (remember that the names of character properties consist only of
680 alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
682 =item Can't find label %s
684 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
685 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
687 =item Can't find %s on PATH
689 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
692 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
694 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
695 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
696 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
698 =item Can't find %s property definition %s
700 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
701 example C<\p{Lu}> is all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
702 Unicode property, see L<perlunicode> for the list of known properties.
703 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
704 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
707 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
709 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
710 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
711 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
713 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
715 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
716 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
717 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
721 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
724 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
726 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
727 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
728 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
729 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
730 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
731 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
732 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
733 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
734 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
735 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
736 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
737 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
738 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
739 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
740 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
742 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
744 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
745 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
747 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
749 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
750 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
752 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
754 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
755 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
757 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
759 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
760 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
761 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
762 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
764 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
766 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
769 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
771 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
772 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
773 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
774 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
776 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
778 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
779 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
780 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
781 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
782 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
783 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
785 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
787 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
788 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
789 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
790 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
791 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
792 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
795 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
797 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
798 may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
799 incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
800 between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
801 extension was built against an older version of the library that is
802 installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
805 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
807 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
808 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
809 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
812 =item Can't localize through a reference
814 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
815 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
816 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
817 that $ref will still be a reference.
819 =item Can't locate %s
821 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
822 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
823 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
824 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
825 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
826 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
827 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
829 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
831 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
832 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
833 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
834 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
836 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
838 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
839 for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
840 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
842 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
844 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
845 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
846 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
848 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
850 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
851 doesn't seem to exist.
853 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
855 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
856 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
858 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
860 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
863 =item Can't modify %s in %s
865 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
866 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
868 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
870 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
873 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
875 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
876 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
878 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
880 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
883 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
885 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
886 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
887 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
888 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
889 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
890 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
892 =item Can't open %s: %s
894 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
895 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
896 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
897 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
900 =item Can't open a reference
902 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
903 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
907 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
908 open is not supported.
910 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
912 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
913 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
914 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
915 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
917 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
919 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
920 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
921 the command line for writing.
923 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
925 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
926 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
927 command line for reading.
929 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
931 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
932 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
933 the command line for writing.
935 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
937 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
938 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
941 =item Can't open perl script%s
943 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
945 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
946 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
947 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
949 =item Can't read CRTL environ
951 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
952 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
953 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
954 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
957 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
959 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
960 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
961 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
962 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
964 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
966 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
967 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
968 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
969 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
970 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
971 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
973 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
975 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
976 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
977 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
979 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
981 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
982 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
984 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
986 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
987 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
989 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
991 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
992 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
993 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
995 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
997 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1000 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1002 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1003 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1006 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1008 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1009 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1011 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1013 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1014 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1015 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1016 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1019 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1021 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1022 open already. Bizarre.
1024 =item Can't swap uid and euid
1026 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1029 =item Can't take log of %g
1031 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1032 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1033 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1036 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1038 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1039 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1040 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1042 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1044 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1045 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1046 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1050 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1051 as the main Perl stack.
1053 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
1055 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1056 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1057 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1058 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1060 =item Can't upgrade to undef
1062 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
1063 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
1066 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1068 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1069 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1070 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1072 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1074 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1075 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1077 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1079 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1080 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1082 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1084 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1085 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1086 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1088 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1090 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1091 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1092 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1094 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1096 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1099 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1101 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1102 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1103 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1104 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1107 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1109 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1110 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1111 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1112 is inside a big-endian group.
1114 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1116 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1117 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1118 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1119 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1122 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1124 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1125 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1126 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1128 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1130 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1131 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1133 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1135 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1136 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1137 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1139 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1141 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1142 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1143 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1144 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1145 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1148 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1150 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1151 references can be weakened.
1153 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1155 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1156 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1157 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1159 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1165 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1166 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1167 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1171 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1174 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1180 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1181 all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1184 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1186 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1192 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1193 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1194 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1196 pack("c", $x & 255);
1198 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1201 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1203 (W unpack) You tried something like
1205 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1207 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1208 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1209 modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1211 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1213 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1215 (W pack) You tried something like
1217 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1219 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1220 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1221 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1223 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1225 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1227 (W unpack) You tried something like
1229 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1231 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1232 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1233 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1235 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1237 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1239 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1241 =item Code missing after '/'
1243 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1244 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1246 =item %s: Command not found
1248 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1249 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1251 =item Compilation failed in require
1253 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1254 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1255 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1257 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1259 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1260 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1261 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1262 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1263 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1264 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1265 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1266 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1267 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1269 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1271 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1272 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1273 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1274 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1275 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1276 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1277 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1280 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1282 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1283 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1284 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1285 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1286 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1287 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1288 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1291 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1293 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1294 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1295 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1297 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1299 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1300 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1301 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1302 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1305 =item Constant is not %s reference
1307 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1308 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1309 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1310 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1311 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1313 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1315 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1316 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1317 commentary and workarounds.
1319 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1321 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1322 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1325 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1327 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1328 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1330 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1332 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1334 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1336 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1337 expression compiler gave it.
1339 =item corrupted regexp program
1341 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1344 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1346 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1348 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1350 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1351 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1354 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1356 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1357 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1358 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1359 which case it indicates something else.
1361 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1363 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1364 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1365 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1367 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1369 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1370 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1371 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1373 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1375 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1376 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1378 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1380 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1381 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1382 that triggers this error.
1384 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1386 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1387 There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1388 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1389 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1390 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1391 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1392 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1394 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1398 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1400 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1402 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1403 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1404 to create a dangling reference.
1406 =item Did not produce a valid header
1410 =item %s did not return a true value
1412 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1413 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1414 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1415 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1417 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1419 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1422 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1424 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1425 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1428 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1430 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1431 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1436 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1437 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1439 =item Document contains no data
1443 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1445 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1446 define a C<$VERSION.>
1448 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1450 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1451 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1453 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1455 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1457 =item do_study: out of memory
1459 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1461 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1463 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1464 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1465 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1466 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1467 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1468 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1469 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1470 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1472 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1474 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1475 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1477 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1479 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1482 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1484 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1485 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1487 =item elseif should be elsif
1489 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1490 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1491 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1492 unlikely to be what you want.
1496 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1497 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1498 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1500 =item entering effective %s failed
1502 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1503 effective uids or gids failed.
1505 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1507 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1508 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1509 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1511 =item Error converting file specification %s
1513 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1514 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1515 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1516 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1517 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1519 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1521 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1522 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1523 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1525 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1527 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1528 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1529 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1530 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1531 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1532 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1534 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1536 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1537 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1538 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1540 =item Excessively long <> operator
1542 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1543 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1544 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1545 variable and glob that.
1547 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1549 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1551 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1553 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1555 =item Exiting eval via %s
1557 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1558 goto, or a loop control statement.
1560 =item Exiting format via %s
1562 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1563 goto, or a loop control statement.
1565 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1567 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1568 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1569 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1571 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1573 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1574 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1576 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1578 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1579 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1581 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1583 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1584 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1585 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1586 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1588 =item %s: Expression syntax
1590 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1591 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1593 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1595 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1596 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1597 routines has been prematurely ended.
1599 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1601 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1602 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1603 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1604 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1605 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1607 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1609 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1610 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1611 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1612 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1614 =item fcntl is not implemented
1616 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1617 PDP-11 or something?
1619 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1621 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1622 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1623 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1626 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1628 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1629 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1630 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1631 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1633 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1635 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1636 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1637 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1638 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1639 Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1640 (also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1642 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1644 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1645 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1648 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1650 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1651 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
1653 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1655 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1656 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1657 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1660 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1662 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1663 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1664 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1667 =item Format not terminated
1669 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1670 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1672 =item Format %s redefined
1674 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1677 no warnings 'redefine';
1678 eval "format NAME =...";
1681 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1691 (or something like that).
1693 =item %s found where operator expected
1695 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1696 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1697 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1698 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1700 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1702 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1704 =item gethostent not implemented
1706 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1707 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1710 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1712 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1713 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1715 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1717 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1718 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1720 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1722 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1723 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1724 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1726 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1728 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1729 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1730 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1733 =item glob failed (%s)
1735 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1736 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1737 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1738 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1739 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1740 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1741 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1742 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1743 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1744 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1745 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1747 =item Glob not terminated
1749 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1750 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1751 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1752 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1754 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1756 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1757 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1759 =item goto must have label
1761 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1762 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1764 =item ()-group starts with a count
1766 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
1767 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1768 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1770 =item %s had compilation errors
1772 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1774 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1776 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1777 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1778 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1780 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1782 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1783 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1785 =item %s has too many errors
1787 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1788 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1790 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1792 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1793 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1794 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1796 =item Identifier too long
1798 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1799 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1800 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1801 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1803 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1805 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1807 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1809 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1810 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1813 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1815 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1816 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1817 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1818 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1819 to your Perl administrator.
1821 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1823 (W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
1824 characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1826 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1828 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1829 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1831 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
1833 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
1835 =item Illegal division by zero
1837 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1838 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1841 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1843 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1844 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1845 number stopped before the illegal character.
1847 =item Illegal modulus zero
1849 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1850 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1852 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1854 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1855 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1857 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1859 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1861 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1863 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1864 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1866 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1868 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1869 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtwA]>.
1871 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1873 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1874 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1875 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1877 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1879 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1880 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1881 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1884 =item Impossible to activate assertion call
1886 (W assertions) You're calling an assertion function in a block that is
1887 not under the control of the C<assertions> pragma.
1889 =item (in cleanup) %s
1891 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1892 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1893 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1894 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1895 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1897 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1898 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1900 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
1902 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
1903 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
1904 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
1906 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1908 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1909 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1910 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1911 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1912 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1913 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1914 L<perlsec> for more information.
1916 =item Insecure directory in %s
1918 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1919 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1920 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
1923 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1925 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1926 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1927 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
1928 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
1929 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1931 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1933 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1934 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1935 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1936 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1937 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1938 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1939 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1940 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1943 =item Integer overflow in version
1945 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
1946 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
1947 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
1948 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
1949 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
1952 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1954 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1955 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1958 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1960 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1961 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1962 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1963 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1964 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1965 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1967 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1969 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
1970 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1973 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1975 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1976 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1977 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1978 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1980 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1982 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1983 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1985 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1987 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1988 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1990 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1992 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1993 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1995 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1997 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1998 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
1999 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2000 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2001 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2003 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2005 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2006 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2008 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2010 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2011 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2012 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2015 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2017 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2018 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2019 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2020 list was terminated too soon.
2022 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2024 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2025 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2026 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2029 =item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
2031 (F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
2032 that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
2035 =item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
2037 (F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
2038 See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
2040 =item ioctl is not implemented
2042 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2043 strange for a machine that supports C.
2045 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2047 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2048 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2050 =item IO layers (like "%s") unavailable
2052 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2053 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2056 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2058 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2059 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2061 =item $* is no longer supported
2063 (D deprecated) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
2064 been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2065 C<//m> and C<//s> regexp modifiers instead.
2067 =item $# is no longer supported
2069 (D deprecated) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
2070 been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2071 printf/sprintf functions instead.
2073 =item `%s' is not a code reference
2075 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2076 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
2079 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2081 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2084 =item junk on end of regexp
2086 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2088 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2090 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2091 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2094 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2096 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2097 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2100 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2102 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2103 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2106 =item leaving effective %s failed
2108 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2109 effective uids or gids failed.
2111 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2113 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2114 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2115 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2117 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2119 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2120 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2123 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2125 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2126 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The <-- HERE
2127 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2129 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
2131 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2132 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2133 instead on the filehandle.)
2135 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2137 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2138 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2139 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2141 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2143 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2144 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2146 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2148 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2149 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2151 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2153 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2160 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2161 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2162 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2163 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2165 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2167 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2168 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2169 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2170 when the function is called.
2172 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2174 (W utf8) Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
2176 One possible cause is that you read in data that you thought to be in
2177 UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit data). Another
2178 possibility is careless use of utf8::upgrade().
2180 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2182 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2183 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2185 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2187 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2188 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2190 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2192 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2193 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2195 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2197 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2198 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2200 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2202 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2203 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2204 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2207 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2209 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2210 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2213 =item % may not be used in pack
2215 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2216 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2217 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2219 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2221 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2222 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2224 =item Method %s not permitted
2228 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2230 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2231 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2232 ended earlier on the current line.
2234 =item Misplaced _ in number
2236 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2237 separate two digits.
2239 =item Missing argument to -%c
2241 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2242 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2244 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
2246 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2247 double-quotish context.
2249 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2251 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2252 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2254 =item Missing command in piped open
2256 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2257 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2260 =item Missing control char name in \c
2262 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2265 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2267 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2268 they have a name with which they can be found.
2270 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2272 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2273 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2274 can vary from one line to the next.
2276 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2278 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2279 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2281 =item Missing right brace on %s
2283 (F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
2285 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2287 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2288 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2291 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2293 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2294 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2295 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2297 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2299 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2300 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2301 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2303 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2306 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2308 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2309 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2312 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2313 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2316 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2318 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2319 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2322 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2324 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2325 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2327 =item Module name must be constant
2329 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2331 =item Module name required with -%c option
2333 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2334 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2335 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2337 =item More than one argument to open
2339 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2340 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2341 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2342 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2344 =item msg%s not implemented
2346 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2348 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2350 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2351 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2353 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2355 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2356 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2357 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2359 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2361 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2364 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2366 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2367 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2368 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2370 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2372 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2373 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2374 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2375 provided for this purpose.
2377 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2378 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2379 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2380 will not trigger this warning.
2382 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2384 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2385 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2387 =item Negative length
2389 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2390 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2392 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2394 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2395 greater than or equal to zero.
2397 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2399 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2400 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2401 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2403 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2404 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2406 =item %s never introduced
2408 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2409 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2411 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2413 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2414 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2415 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2416 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2418 =item No comma allowed after %s
2420 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2421 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2422 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2424 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2425 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2426 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2427 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2428 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2429 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2430 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2431 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2432 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2433 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2434 this error was triggered?
2436 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2438 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2439 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2440 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2442 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2444 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2445 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2446 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2449 =item No dbm on this machine
2451 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2452 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2454 =item No DB::sub routine defined
2456 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2457 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2458 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2459 of each ordinary subroutine call.
2461 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2463 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2465 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2467 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2468 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2469 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2471 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2473 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2474 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2476 =item No input file after < on command line
2478 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2479 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2480 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2484 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2485 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2487 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2489 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2490 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2492 =item No output file after > on command line
2494 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2495 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2496 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2498 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2500 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2501 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2502 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2504 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2506 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2507 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2508 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2510 =item No Perl script found in input
2512 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2513 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2515 =item No setregid available
2517 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2520 =item No setreuid available
2522 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2525 =item No %s specified for -%c
2527 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2528 you haven't specified one.
2530 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2532 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2533 but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2534 package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2536 =item No such class %s
2538 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration, but
2539 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2541 =item No such pipe open
2543 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2544 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2545 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2547 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2549 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2550 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2551 names on your system.
2553 =item Not a CODE reference
2555 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2556 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2557 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2560 =item Not a format reference
2562 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2563 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2565 =item Not a GLOB reference
2567 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2568 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2569 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2570 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2572 =item Not a HASH reference
2574 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2575 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2576 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2578 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2580 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2581 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2582 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2584 =item Not a perl script
2586 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2587 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2590 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2592 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2593 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2594 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2596 =item Not a subroutine reference
2598 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2599 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2600 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2603 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2605 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2606 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2608 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2610 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2612 =item Not enough format arguments
2614 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2615 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2619 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2620 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2623 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2625 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2626 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2627 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2628 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2629 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2631 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
2633 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
2634 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
2635 select. See L<perlfunc/select>
2637 =item Null filename used
2639 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2640 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2642 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2644 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2647 =item Null picture in formline
2649 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2650 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2651 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2655 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2657 =item NULL regexp argument
2659 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2661 =item NULL regexp parameter
2663 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2665 =item Number too long
2667 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2668 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2669 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2670 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2673 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2675 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2676 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2679 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2681 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2682 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2683 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2685 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2687 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2689 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2690 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
2692 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2694 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2695 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2697 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2699 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2700 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2702 =item Offset outside string
2704 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2705 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2706 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2707 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2709 =item %s() on unopened %s
2711 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2712 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2713 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2715 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2717 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2718 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2722 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2726 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2728 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
2730 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2731 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2732 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2733 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2735 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2737 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2738 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2739 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2740 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2743 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2745 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2746 in the current lexical scope.
2748 =item Out of memory!
2750 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2751 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2752 no option but to exit immediately.
2754 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
2755 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
2756 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
2757 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
2758 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
2760 =item Out of memory during %s extend
2762 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
2763 the largest possible memory allocation.
2765 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2767 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2768 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2769 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2770 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2772 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2774 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2775 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2778 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2779 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2780 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2781 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2782 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2783 where the failed request happened.
2785 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2787 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2788 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2789 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2791 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2793 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2794 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2797 =item '.' outside of string in pack
2799 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
2800 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
2802 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
2804 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2805 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2807 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
2809 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2810 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
2811 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2813 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2815 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2816 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2817 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2818 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2820 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
2822 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2823 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2827 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2828 page. See L<perlform>.
2832 (P) An internal error.
2834 =item panic: ck_grep
2836 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2838 =item panic: ck_split
2840 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2842 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2844 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2845 there are in the savestack.
2847 =item panic: del_backref
2849 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2852 =item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
2854 (P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
2855 last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
2856 an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
2857 a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
2861 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2862 it wasn't an eval context.
2864 =item panic: do_subst
2866 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2869 =item panic: do_trans_%s
2871 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
2876 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2880 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2881 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2883 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2885 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2887 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2889 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2891 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2893 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2897 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2898 it wasn't a block context.
2900 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2902 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2905 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2907 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2908 invalid enum on the top of it.
2910 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2912 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2913 references to an object.
2917 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2919 =item panic: memory wrap
2921 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
2923 =item panic: null array
2925 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2927 =item panic: pad_alloc
2929 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2930 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2932 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2934 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2935 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2937 =item panic: pad_free po
2939 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2941 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2943 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2944 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2946 =item panic: pad_sv po
2948 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2950 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2952 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2953 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2955 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2957 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2959 =item panic: pp_iter
2961 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2963 =item panic: pp_match%s
2965 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2968 =item panic: pp_split
2970 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2972 =item panic: realloc
2974 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2976 =item panic: restartop
2978 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2979 didn't supply the destination.
2983 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2984 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2986 =item panic: scan_num
2988 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2990 =item panic: sv_insert
2992 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2995 =item panic: top_env
2997 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2999 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3001 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3004 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3006 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3007 to even) byte length.
3011 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3013 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3015 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3021 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3023 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
3025 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3027 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3028 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3029 redirected it with select().)
3031 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3033 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3034 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3035 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3037 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3039 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3040 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3041 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3042 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3044 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3046 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3047 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3048 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3050 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3052 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3053 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3055 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3057 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3059 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3061 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3063 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3064 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3067 are supported and installed on your system.
3068 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3070 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3071 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3072 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3073 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3074 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3075 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3076 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3077 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3078 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3079 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3081 =item Permission denied
3083 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
3085 =item pid %x not a child
3087 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3088 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3089 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3091 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3093 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3095 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
3097 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
3098 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
3100 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3102 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3103 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3104 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3105 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3106 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3108 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3110 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3111 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3113 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3115 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3116 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3117 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3118 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3119 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3120 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3122 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3124 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3125 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3126 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3127 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3128 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3129 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3131 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3133 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3134 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3135 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3136 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3137 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3138 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3140 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3142 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3143 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3144 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3145 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3147 You probably wrote something like this:
3154 when you should have written this:
3161 If you really want comments, build your list the
3162 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3166 'b', # another comment
3169 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3171 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3172 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3173 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3176 You probably wrote something like this:
3180 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3181 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3185 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3187 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3188 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3189 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3190 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3192 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3194 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3195 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3197 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3199 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3200 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3201 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3202 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3204 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3206 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3207 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3208 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3209 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3211 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
3213 (D deprecated) You have written something like this:
3217 use attrs qw(locked);
3220 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
3226 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
3227 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
3229 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3231 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3235 is now misinterpreted as
3239 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3240 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3241 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3244 =item Premature end of script headers
3248 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3250 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3251 before now. Check your control flow.
3253 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3255 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3256 before now. Check your control flow.
3258 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3260 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3261 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3262 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3263 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3266 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3268 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3269 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3271 =item Prototype not terminated
3273 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3276 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3278 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3279 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3280 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3282 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3284 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3285 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3286 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3288 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3290 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3291 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3292 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3293 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3294 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3296 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3299 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3301 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3302 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3303 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3304 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3306 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3308 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3309 before now. Check your control flow.
3311 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3313 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3315 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3317 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3319 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
3321 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3323 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3325 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3328 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3330 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3331 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3332 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3334 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3336 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
3337 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
3339 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3341 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3342 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3345 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3347 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3348 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3349 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3350 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3352 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3353 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3354 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3355 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3357 =item Reference is already weak
3359 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3360 Doing so has no effect.
3362 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3364 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3365 a reference count of other than 1.
3367 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3369 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3370 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3371 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3372 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
3374 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3377 =item regexp memory corruption
3379 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3380 expression compiler gave it.
3382 =item Regexp out of space
3384 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3387 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3389 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
3390 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3391 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3393 =item Reversed %s= operator
3395 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3396 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3398 =item Runaway format
3400 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3401 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3402 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3403 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3404 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3406 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3408 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3409 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3410 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3411 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3413 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3415 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3416 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3417 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3418 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3419 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3420 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3421 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3423 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3424 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3425 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3428 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3430 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3431 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3432 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3433 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3434 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3435 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3436 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3438 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3439 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3440 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3443 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3445 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3446 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
3448 =item Search pattern not terminated
3450 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3451 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3452 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3454 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
3455 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3456 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3457 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3459 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
3461 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
3464 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
3465 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
3466 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
3467 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
3469 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3471 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3472 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3474 =item select not implemented
3476 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3478 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3480 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3481 the current implementation.
3483 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3485 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3486 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3488 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3490 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3491 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3493 =item sem%s not implemented
3495 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3497 =item send() on closed socket %s
3499 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3500 before now. Check your control flow.
3502 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3504 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3505 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3508 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3510 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3511 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3512 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3514 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3516 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3517 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3518 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3520 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3522 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3523 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3524 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3527 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3529 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3530 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3531 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3534 =item 500 Server error
3540 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3541 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3542 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3543 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3544 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3545 produce a valid header".
3547 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3549 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3550 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3551 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3552 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3553 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3554 Please see the following for more information:
3556 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3557 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3558 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
3560 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3562 =item setegid() not implemented
3564 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3565 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3568 =item seteuid() not implemented
3570 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3571 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3574 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3576 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3577 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3580 =item setrgid() not implemented
3582 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3583 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3586 =item setruid() not implemented
3588 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3589 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3592 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3594 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3595 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3596 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3598 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3600 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3601 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3603 =item Setuid script not plain file
3605 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
3606 but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
3608 =item shm%s not implemented
3610 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3612 =item !=~ should be !~
3614 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
3615 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
3616 operators: probably not what you intended.
3618 =item <> should be quotes
3620 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3623 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3625 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3626 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3627 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3628 probably not what you had in mind.
3630 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3632 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3635 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3637 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3638 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3640 =item sort is now a reserved word
3642 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3643 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3645 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3647 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3648 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3649 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3651 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3653 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3654 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3656 =item splice() offset past end of array
3658 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
3659 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
3660 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
3661 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
3666 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3667 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3668 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3670 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3672 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3673 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3674 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3675 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3678 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3680 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3681 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3683 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s"
3685 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3686 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3687 C<can> may break this.
3689 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3691 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3694 no warnings 'redefine';
3695 eval "sub name { ... }";
3698 =item Substitution loop
3700 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3701 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3702 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3703 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3705 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3707 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3708 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3709 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3711 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3713 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3714 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3715 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3717 =item substr outside of string
3719 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3720 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3721 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3722 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3723 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3725 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3727 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3728 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3730 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
3732 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
3733 inferior to its current type.
3735 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3737 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3738 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3739 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3740 clustering parentheses:
3742 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3744 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3745 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3747 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3749 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3750 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3751 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3753 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3755 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3756 and effective uids or gids.
3760 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3764 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3766 A keyword is misspelled.
3767 A semicolon is missing.
3769 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3770 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3771 A closing quote is missing.
3773 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3774 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3775 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3776 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3777 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3778 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3779 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3780 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3781 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3784 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3786 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3787 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3790 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
3792 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
3793 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
3794 or "my $var" or "our $var".
3796 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
3798 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3800 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
3802 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3804 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3806 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3807 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3808 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3809 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3811 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3813 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3814 before now. Check your control flow.
3816 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
3818 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
3819 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
3821 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3823 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3824 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3826 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3828 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3829 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3831 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3833 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3834 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3843 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3844 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3846 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3848 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3849 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3850 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3851 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3854 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3856 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3857 to the probings of Configure.
3859 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3861 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3862 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3863 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3866 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
3868 (F) Currently this attribute is not supported on C<my> or C<sub>
3869 declarations. See L<perlfunc/our>.
3871 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3873 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3875 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3876 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3877 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3878 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3879 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3880 target of the change to
3881 %ENV which produced the warning.
3883 =item thread failed to start: %s
3885 (W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
3887 =item times not implemented
3889 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3890 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3892 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
3894 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3895 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3896 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3897 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3900 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3901 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3902 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3903 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3905 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3906 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3908 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
3910 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
3911 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
3912 specified an illegal mapping.
3913 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
3915 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
3917 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
3919 =item Too few args to syscall
3921 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3922 system call to call, silly dilly.
3924 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3926 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3927 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option. This is an error because those options
3928 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3930 =item Too late to run %s block
3932 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3933 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3934 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3935 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3938 =item Too many args to syscall
3940 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3942 =item Too many arguments for %s
3944 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3948 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3949 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3953 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3954 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3956 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
3958 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3959 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3961 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3963 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3964 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3965 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3967 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3969 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
3970 y/// or y[][] construct.
3972 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
3974 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
3975 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
3977 =item truncate not implemented
3979 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3980 Configure knows about.
3982 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3984 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3985 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3986 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3987 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3989 =item umask not implemented
3991 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3992 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3994 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3996 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3998 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4000 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4001 many execution contexts were entered and left.
4003 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4005 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4006 many values were temporarily localized.
4008 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4010 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4011 many blocks were entered and left.
4013 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4015 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4016 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
4018 =item Undefined format "%s" called
4020 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4021 another package? See L<perlform>.
4023 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4025 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4026 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4028 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4030 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4031 since been undefined.
4033 =item Undefined subroutine called
4035 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4036 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4038 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
4040 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4041 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4043 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
4045 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4046 another package? See L<perlform>.
4048 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4050 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4051 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4054 =item %s: Undefined variable
4056 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4057 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4059 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4061 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4062 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4064 =item Unicode character %s is illegal
4066 (W utf8) Certain Unicode characters have been designated off-limits by
4067 the Unicode standard and should not be generated. If you really know
4068 what you are doing you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4070 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
4072 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4075 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4077 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
4078 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
4079 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
4081 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4083 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4084 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4085 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4086 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4087 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4088 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4090 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4092 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4093 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4094 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4095 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
4097 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4099 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4101 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4103 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4104 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4105 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4106 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4107 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4110 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4111 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4113 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4115 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4116 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4118 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4120 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4121 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4123 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4125 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4126 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4128 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4129 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
4132 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4134 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
4135 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
4136 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4137 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4139 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4141 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
4142 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4143 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4144 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4146 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
4148 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4149 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4150 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4151 you were last editing.
4153 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4155 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4156 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4157 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4160 =item Unrecognized character %s
4162 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
4163 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
4164 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
4166 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
4168 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4169 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4170 understood literally.
4172 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
4174 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4177 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4179 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4180 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
4181 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
4182 literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4183 escape was discovered.
4185 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4187 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4188 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4191 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
4193 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4194 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4195 bad switch on your behalf.)
4197 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4199 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4200 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
4201 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
4203 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4205 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4207 =item Unsupported function %s
4209 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4210 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4212 =item Unsupported function fork
4214 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4216 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4217 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4218 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
4220 =item Unsupported script encoding %s
4222 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
4223 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
4225 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4227 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4228 least that's what Configure thought.
4230 =item Unterminated attribute list
4232 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4233 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4234 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4235 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
4237 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4239 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4240 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
4241 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4242 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4244 =item Unterminated compressed integer
4246 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4247 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4248 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4250 =item Unterminated <> operator
4252 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
4253 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4254 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4255 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
4257 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
4259 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4260 still valid when C<untie> was called.
4262 =item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4264 (F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4265 See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4267 =item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4269 (F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4270 See L<Win32> for more information.
4272 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4274 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4275 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
4277 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
4281 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
4283 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4284 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4286 =item Useless localization of %s
4288 (W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4289 legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4290 some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4292 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4294 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4295 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
4297 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
4301 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
4303 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4304 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4306 =item Useless use of %s in void context
4308 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
4309 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4310 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4311 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4312 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4313 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4318 when you meant to say
4320 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4322 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4323 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4328 when you should have said
4332 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4333 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4334 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4335 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4336 L<perlref> for more on this.
4338 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4339 since they are often used in statements like
4341 1 while sub_with_side_effects() ;
4343 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4346 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
4348 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4350 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4352 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4356 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4358 =item Useless use of %s with no values
4360 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
4361 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4362 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4363 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4364 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4365 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4367 =item "use" not allowed in expression
4369 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4370 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4372 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4374 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
4375 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4377 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4379 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4380 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4381 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4384 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4385 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4387 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4389 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4390 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4392 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4394 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4395 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4396 used. (This may change in the future.)
4398 =item Use of freed value in iteration
4400 (F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
4401 This error is typically caused by code like the following:
4404 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
4406 You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
4407 For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
4408 reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
4409 middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
4411 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4413 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4414 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4416 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
4418 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4419 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4420 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
4422 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
4424 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
4425 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
4426 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
4428 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4430 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4431 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4432 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4433 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4436 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4437 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4438 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4439 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4442 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
4443 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4444 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4445 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4448 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4449 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
4450 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
4452 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4454 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4455 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4457 =item Use of %s is deprecated
4459 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
4460 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4461 old way has bad side effects.
4463 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4465 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4466 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4467 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4469 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4471 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4472 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4473 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4476 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
4478 (W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
4479 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4480 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
4482 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
4483 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4484 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
4485 operators and then you assumedly know what you are doing.
4487 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4489 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4490 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4491 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4492 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4493 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4494 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
4496 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
4498 (W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
4499 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
4500 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
4501 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
4503 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
4505 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
4506 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
4507 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
4509 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
4510 name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
4511 do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
4512 in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
4513 displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
4514 program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
4515 . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
4516 even though there is no C<.> in your program.
4518 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
4520 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
4521 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
4522 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
4523 be removed in a future version.
4525 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
4527 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
4528 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
4529 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
4530 removed in a future version.
4532 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
4534 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of an UTF-16 surrogate by
4535 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
4536 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
4537 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
4538 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
4539 character. If you really know what you are doing you can turn off
4540 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4542 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
4544 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
4545 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
4546 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
4547 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
4548 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
4549 C<defined> operator.
4551 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
4553 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
4554 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
4555 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
4558 =item Variable "%s" is not available
4560 (W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
4561 attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
4562 This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
4563 declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
4564 (Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
4565 subs are created at run-time.) For example,
4567 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
4569 At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
4570 since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
4571 the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
4572 now been created and is live:
4574 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
4576 The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
4577 gone out of scope, for example,
4585 Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
4586 executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
4588 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
4590 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
4591 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
4592 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
4593 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
4594 front of your variable.
4596 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4598 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
4599 known at compile time. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4600 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4602 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
4604 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
4605 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
4606 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
4607 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
4608 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
4610 =item Variable syntax
4612 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4613 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4616 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4618 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
4619 lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
4621 When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
4622 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4623 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4624 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4625 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4626 variable will no longer be shared.
4628 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4629 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
4630 reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
4631 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
4633 =item Version number must be a constant number
4635 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4636 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4639 =item v-string in use/require is non-portable
4641 (W portable) The use of v-strings is non-portable to older, pre-5.6, Perls.
4642 If you want your scripts to be backward portable, use the floating
4643 point version number: for example, instead of C<use 5.6.1> say
4644 C<use 5.006_001>. This of course won't help: the older Perls
4645 won't suddenly start understanding newer features, but at least
4646 they will show a sensible error message indicating the required
4649 =item Warning: something's wrong
4651 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
4652 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
4654 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
4656 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4657 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4660 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
4662 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4663 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4664 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4665 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
4669 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4673 but in actual fact, you got
4677 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
4679 =item Wide character in %s
4681 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
4682 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
4683 way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
4684 output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
4685 warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
4686 cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
4687 filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4689 =item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
4691 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
4692 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
4693 determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
4694 of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
4696 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
4698 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4699 before now. Check your control flow.
4701 =item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
4703 When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
4704 into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
4705 this encoding, for example
4707 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
4709 if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
4711 =item 'X' outside of string
4713 (F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
4714 the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4716 =item 'x' outside of string in unpack
4718 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
4719 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4721 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
4723 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
4724 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
4725 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
4728 =item You need to quote "%s"
4730 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
4731 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
4732 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
4733 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
4734 what you want, put an & in front.)
4736 =item Your random numbers are not that random
4738 (F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
4739 not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
4740 Something Very Wrong.