3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
24 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
25 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
26 The symbols C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
30 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
32 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34 if you want to localize a package variable.
36 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
38 (W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
39 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
40 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
41 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
44 =item "no" not allowed in expression
46 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
49 =item "use" not allowed in expression
51 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
54 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
56 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
59 =item % may only be used in unpack
61 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
62 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
63 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
65 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
67 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
68 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
69 C<'>-delimited regular expression.
71 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
73 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
74 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
75 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
77 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
79 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
84 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
86 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
91 or a hash slice, such as
93 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
94 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
96 =item %s did not return a true value
98 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
99 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
100 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
101 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
103 =item %s found where operator expected
105 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
106 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
107 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
108 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
110 =item %s had compilation errors
112 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
114 =item %s has too many errors
116 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
117 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
119 =item %s matches null string many times
121 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
122 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
124 =item %s never introduced
126 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
127 before it could possibly have been used.
131 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
133 =item %s: Command not found
135 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
136 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
139 =item %s: Expression syntax
141 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
142 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
145 =item %s: Undefined variable
147 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
148 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
153 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
154 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
157 =item (in cleanup) %s
159 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
160 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
161 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
162 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
163 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
166 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
167 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
169 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
171 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
172 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
173 the previous line just because you saw this message.
175 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
177 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
178 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
180 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
182 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
183 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
185 =item C<-p> destination: %s
187 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
188 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
189 redirected it with select().)
191 =item 500 Server error
195 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
197 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
198 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
200 =item @ outside of string
202 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
203 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
205 =item accept() on closed fd
207 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
208 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
210 =item Allocation too large: %lx
212 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
214 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
216 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
217 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
218 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
219 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
220 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
221 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
223 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
225 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
227 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
229 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
230 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
231 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
233 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
235 (W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
236 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
237 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
240 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
241 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
242 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
243 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
245 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
246 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
247 to be an object method (see L<attrs>).
249 =item Args must match #! line
251 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
252 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
253 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
254 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
256 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
258 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
259 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
260 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
262 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
264 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
265 is now heavily deprecated.
267 =item assertion botched: %s
269 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
271 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
273 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
275 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
277 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
278 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
279 know which context to supply to the right side.
281 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
283 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
284 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
287 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
289 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
290 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
291 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
292 that can no longer be found in the table.
294 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
296 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
297 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
298 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
299 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
302 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
304 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
306 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
308 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
309 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
310 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
311 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
312 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
313 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
315 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
317 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
318 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
319 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
320 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
321 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
324 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
326 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
327 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
328 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
330 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
332 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
333 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
334 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
335 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
337 =item Bad filehandle: %s
339 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
340 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
341 did it in another package.
343 =item Bad free() ignored
345 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
346 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
347 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
349 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
350 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
351 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
356 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
358 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
360 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
361 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
364 =item Bad name after %s::
366 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
367 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
376 $sym = "mypack::$var";
378 =item Bad symbol for array
380 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
381 wasn't a symbol table entry.
383 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
385 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
386 wasn't a symbol table entry.
388 =item Bad symbol for hash
390 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
391 wasn't a symbol table entry.
393 =item Badly placed ()'s
395 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
396 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
399 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
401 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
402 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
403 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
405 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
407 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
408 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
409 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
411 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
413 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
414 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
416 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
418 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
419 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
420 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
421 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
422 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
424 =item bind() on closed fd
426 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
427 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
429 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
431 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
433 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
435 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
436 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
437 so it was truncated to the string shown.
439 =item Callback called exit
441 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
442 exited by calling exit.
444 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
446 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
447 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
448 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
449 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
451 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
453 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
454 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
456 =item Can't "last" outside a block
458 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
459 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
460 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
461 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
462 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
463 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
465 =item Can't "next" outside a block
467 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
468 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
469 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
470 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
471 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
473 =item Can't read CRTL environ
475 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
476 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
477 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
478 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
480 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
482 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
483 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
484 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
485 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
486 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
488 =item Can't bless non-reference value
490 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
491 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
493 =item Can't break at that line
495 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
496 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
499 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
501 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
502 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
503 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
505 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
507 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
508 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
509 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
510 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
512 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
514 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
515 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
516 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
517 Something like this will reproduce the error:
520 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
521 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
523 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
525 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
526 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
527 Something like this will reproduce the error:
530 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
531 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
533 =item Can't chdir to %s
535 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
536 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
538 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s"
540 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
542 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
544 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
545 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
555 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
557 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
559 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
560 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
562 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
564 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
565 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
567 =item Can't coerce array into hash
569 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
570 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
571 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
573 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
575 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
576 or other plumbing problems.
578 =item Can't declare %s in my
580 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
581 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
583 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
585 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
587 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
589 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
590 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
593 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
595 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
597 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
599 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
600 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
602 =item Can't do setegid!
604 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
607 =item Can't do seteuid!
609 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
611 =item Can't do setuid
613 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
614 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
615 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
616 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
617 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
618 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
620 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
622 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
623 without flags is emulated.
625 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
627 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
628 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
630 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
632 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
633 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
635 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
637 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
638 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
639 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
640 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
641 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
642 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
646 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
647 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
648 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
650 =item Can't execute %s
652 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
653 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
655 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
657 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
658 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
659 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
661 =item Can't find %s on PATH
663 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
666 =item Can't find label %s
668 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
669 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
671 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
673 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
674 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
675 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
677 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
679 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
680 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
681 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
685 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
687 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
689 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
690 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
691 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
692 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
693 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
694 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
695 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
696 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
697 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
698 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
699 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
700 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
701 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
702 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
704 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
706 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
707 can't retrieve its name for later use.
709 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
711 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
712 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
714 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
716 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
717 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
718 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
721 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
723 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
724 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
726 =item Can't localize through a reference
728 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
729 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
730 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
731 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
733 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
735 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
736 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
737 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
740 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
742 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
743 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
744 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
745 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
747 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
749 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
750 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
751 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
752 doing C<make install>.
754 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
756 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
757 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set the
758 PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra library
759 is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
760 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
762 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
764 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
765 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
766 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
768 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
770 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
773 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
775 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
777 =item Can't modify %s in %s
779 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
780 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
782 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
784 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
787 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
789 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
792 =item Can't open %s: %s
794 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
795 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
796 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
797 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
800 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
802 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
803 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
804 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
805 and then read it in under a different file handle.
807 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
809 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
810 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
811 command line for writing.
813 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
815 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
816 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
818 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
820 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
821 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
824 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
826 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
827 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
829 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
831 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
833 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
835 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
836 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
837 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
838 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
840 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
842 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
843 you don't have write permission to the directory.
845 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
847 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
848 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
850 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
852 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
855 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
857 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
858 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
860 =item Can't stat script "%s"
862 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
863 it open already. Bizarre.
865 =item Can't swap uid and euid
867 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
870 =item Can't take log of %g
872 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
873 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
874 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
875 the negative numbers.
877 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
879 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
880 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
881 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
883 =item Can't undef active subroutine
885 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
886 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
887 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
891 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
892 as the main Perl stack.
894 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
896 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
897 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
898 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
899 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
901 =item Can't upgrade to undef
903 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
904 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
905 code calling sv_upgrade.
907 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
909 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
910 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
911 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
913 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
915 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
916 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
917 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
918 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
921 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
923 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
924 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
925 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
927 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
929 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
931 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
933 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
934 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
935 test the type of the reference, if need be.
937 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
939 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
940 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
941 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
942 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
943 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
945 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
947 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
948 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
950 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
952 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
953 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
955 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
957 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
958 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
960 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
962 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
963 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
964 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
965 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
968 =item Can't use subscript on %s
970 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
971 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
972 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
974 =item Can't x= to read-only value
976 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
977 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
978 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
980 =item Cannot find an opnumber for "%s"
982 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
983 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
985 =item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
987 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
988 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
989 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
991 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
993 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
994 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
995 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
996 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
997 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
999 =item Character class syntax [: :] is reserved for future extensions
1001 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
1002 with "[:" and ending with ":]" is reserved for future extensions.
1003 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1004 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1005 backslash: "\[:" and ":\]".
1007 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1009 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1010 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
1011 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1012 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1013 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1015 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
1017 (W) A novice will sometimes say
1019 chmod 777, $filename
1021 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1022 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1024 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1026 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1028 =item Compilation failed in require
1030 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1031 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1032 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1034 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1036 (W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1037 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1038 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1039 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1040 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1041 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1042 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1043 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1044 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1046 =item connect() on closed fd
1048 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1049 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1051 =item Constant is not %s reference
1053 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1054 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1055 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1056 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1057 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1059 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1061 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1062 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1065 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1067 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1068 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1071 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1073 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1075 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1077 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1079 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1081 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1082 expression compiler gave it.
1084 =item corrupted regexp program
1086 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1087 a valid magic number.
1089 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1091 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1092 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1093 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1094 case it indicates something else.
1096 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1098 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1099 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1100 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1102 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1104 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1106 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1108 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1109 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1113 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1114 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1116 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1118 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1119 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1120 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1121 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1122 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1123 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1124 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1125 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1128 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1130 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1132 =item do_study: out of memory
1134 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1136 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1138 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1141 =item elseif should be elsif
1143 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1144 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1145 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1146 unlikely to be what you want.
1148 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
1150 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1151 The interpreter is immediately exited.
1153 =item entering effective %s failed
1155 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1156 effective uids or gids failed.
1158 =item Error converting file specification %s
1160 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1161 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1162 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1163 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1164 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1166 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1168 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1169 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1170 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1172 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1174 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1175 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1176 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1178 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1180 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1181 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1182 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1183 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1184 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1185 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1187 =item Excessively long <> operator
1189 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1190 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1191 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1192 variable and glob that.
1194 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1196 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1198 =item Exiting eval via %s
1200 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1201 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1203 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1205 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1206 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1207 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1209 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1211 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1212 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1214 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1216 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1217 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1219 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1221 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1222 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1223 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1224 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1226 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1228 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1229 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1230 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1231 the Perl source code is distressed.
1233 =item fcntl is not implemented
1235 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1236 PDP-11 or something?
1238 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1240 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1241 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1242 the FileHandle package.
1244 =item Filehandle %s opened for only input
1246 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1247 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1248 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1249 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1252 =item Filehandle opened for only input
1254 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1255 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1256 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1257 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1260 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1262 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1263 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1264 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1267 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1269 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1270 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1271 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1274 =item Format %s redefined
1276 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1280 eval "format NAME =...";
1283 =item Format not terminated
1285 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1286 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1288 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1298 (or something like that).
1300 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1302 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1304 =item gethostent not implemented
1306 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1307 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1310 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1312 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1313 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1315 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1317 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1318 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1320 =item Glob not terminated
1322 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1323 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1324 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1325 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1327 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1329 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1330 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1331 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1333 =item goto must have label
1335 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1336 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1338 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1340 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1341 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1342 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1344 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1346 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1347 is now heavily deprecated.
1349 =item Identifier too long
1351 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1352 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1353 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1354 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1356 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1358 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1359 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1360 used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1362 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1364 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1365 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1366 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1369 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1371 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1372 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1373 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1375 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1376 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1377 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1378 properly converting the text file format.
1380 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1381 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1382 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1384 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1385 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1388 =item Illegal division by zero
1390 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1391 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1393 =item Illegal modulus zero
1395 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1396 don't take to this kindly.
1398 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1400 (F) You used a digit other than 0 and 1 in a binary number.
1402 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1404 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1406 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1408 (W) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1409 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1411 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1413 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1414 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1416 =item Illegal hex digit %s ignored
1418 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F in a
1419 hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1420 before the illegal character.
1422 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1424 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1425 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1427 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1429 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1430 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1431 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1432 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1433 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1434 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1435 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1437 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1439 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1440 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1441 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1442 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1443 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1444 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1445 for more information.
1447 =item Insecure directory in %s
1449 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1450 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1453 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1455 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1456 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1457 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1458 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1459 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1461 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1463 (S) The literal hex, octal or binary number you have specified is
1464 too big for your architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest
1465 literal hex, octal or binary number representable without overflow
1466 is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or 0b11111111111111111111111111111111
1467 respectively. Note that Perl transparently promotes decimal literals
1468 to a floating point representation internally--subject to loss of
1469 precision errors in subsequent operations--so this limit usually
1470 doesn't apply to decimal literals.
1472 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1474 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1475 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1476 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1477 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1478 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1479 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1480 and execute the specified command.
1482 =item internal disaster in regexp
1484 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1486 =item glob failed (%s)
1488 (W) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1489 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1490 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1491 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1492 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1493 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1494 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1495 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1496 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1497 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1500 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1502 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1504 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1506 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1507 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1509 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1511 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1512 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1514 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1516 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1517 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1520 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1522 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1523 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1526 =item ioctl is not implemented
1528 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1529 strange for a machine that supports C.
1531 =item junk on end of regexp
1533 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1535 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1537 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1538 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1539 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1541 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1543 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1544 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1547 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1549 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1550 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1553 =item leaving effective %s failed
1555 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1556 effective uids or gids failed.
1558 =item listen() on closed fd
1560 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1561 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1563 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1565 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1566 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1568 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1570 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1571 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1572 ended earlier on the current line.
1574 =item Misplaced _ in number
1576 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1578 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1580 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1581 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1582 one line to the next.
1584 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1586 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1587 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1589 =item Missing command in piped open
1591 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1592 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1594 =item Missing operator before %s?
1596 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1597 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1599 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1601 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than
1602 closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place
1603 you were last editing.
1605 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1607 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1608 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1609 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1611 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1614 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1616 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1618 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1619 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1622 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1624 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1625 be created for some peculiar reason.
1627 =item Module name must be constant
1629 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1631 =item msg%s not implemented
1633 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1635 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1637 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1638 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1640 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1642 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1643 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1644 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
1645 provided for just this purpose.
1647 =item Negative length
1649 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1650 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1652 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1654 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1655 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1657 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1658 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1662 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1663 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1665 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1667 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1668 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1669 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1672 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1674 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1676 =item No comma allowed after %s
1678 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1679 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1680 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1682 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1683 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1684 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1685 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1686 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1687 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1688 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1689 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1690 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1691 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1692 this error was triggered?
1694 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1696 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1697 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1698 want to pipe the output from this command.
1700 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1702 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1703 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1704 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1705 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1706 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1709 =item No dbm on this machine
1711 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1712 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1714 =item No DBsub routine
1716 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1717 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1718 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1719 ordinary subroutine call.
1721 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1723 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1724 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1725 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1727 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1729 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1730 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1731 from which to read data for stdin.
1733 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1735 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1736 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1737 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1739 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1741 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1742 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1743 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1745 =item No Perl script found in input
1747 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1748 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1750 =item No setregid available
1752 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1755 =item No setreuid available
1757 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1760 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1762 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1765 =item No such array field
1767 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
1768 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
1769 array indices for that to work.
1771 =item No such field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
1773 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
1774 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
1775 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
1776 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
1778 =item No such pipe open
1780 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1781 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1782 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1784 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1786 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1787 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1789 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
1791 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Per was unable to find the local
1792 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
1793 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
1794 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
1797 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
1799 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Per was unable to find the local
1800 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
1801 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
1802 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
1805 =item Not a CODE reference
1807 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1808 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1809 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1810 See also L<perlref>.
1812 =item Not a format reference
1814 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1815 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1817 =item Not a GLOB reference
1819 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1820 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1821 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1822 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1824 =item Not a HASH reference
1826 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1827 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1828 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1830 =item Not a perl script
1832 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1833 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1836 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1838 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1839 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1840 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1842 =item Not a subroutine reference
1844 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1845 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1846 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1847 See also L<perlref>.
1849 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1851 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1852 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1854 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1856 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1857 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1858 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1860 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1862 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1864 =item Not enough format arguments
1866 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1869 =item Null filename used
1871 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1872 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1874 =item Null picture in formline
1876 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1877 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1878 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1880 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1882 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1886 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1888 =item NULL regexp argument
1890 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1892 =item NULL regexp parameter
1894 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1896 =item Number too long
1898 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
1899 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
1900 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
1901 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
1903 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
1905 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
1906 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
1908 =item Offset outside string
1910 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1911 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1912 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1913 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1917 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1921 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1923 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
1925 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1926 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1927 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1928 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1929 true. See L<overload>.
1931 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1933 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1934 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1935 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1936 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1937 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1939 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1941 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1942 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1944 =item Out of memory during request for %s
1946 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1947 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1949 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1950 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1951 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1952 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
1953 error is trappable I<once>.
1955 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
1957 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1958 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1959 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1960 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1962 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
1964 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
1965 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
1966 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1970 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1973 =item panic: ck_grep
1975 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1977 =item panic: ck_split
1979 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1981 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1983 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1984 are in the savestack.
1988 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1989 it wasn't an eval context.
1991 =item panic: do_match
1993 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1995 =item panic: do_split
1997 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1999 =item panic: do_subst
2001 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2003 =item panic: do_trans
2005 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2009 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2013 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2014 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2016 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2018 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2020 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2022 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2024 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2026 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2030 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2031 it wasn't a block context.
2033 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2035 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
2037 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2039 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2040 invalid enum on the top of it.
2044 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2046 =item panic: mapstart
2048 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2050 =item panic: null array
2052 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2054 =item panic: pad_alloc
2056 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2057 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2059 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2061 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2062 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2064 =item panic: pad_free po
2066 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2068 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2070 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2071 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2073 =item panic: pad_sv po
2075 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2077 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2079 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2080 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2082 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2084 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2086 =item panic: pp_iter
2088 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2090 =item panic: realloc
2092 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2094 =item panic: restartop
2096 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2097 didn't supply the destination.
2101 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2102 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2104 =item panic: scan_num
2106 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2108 =item panic: sv_insert
2110 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2113 =item panic: top_env
2115 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2119 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2121 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2123 (W) You said something like
2129 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2131 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2133 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2135 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2136 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2137 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2139 =item Permission denied
2141 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2143 =item pid %x not a child
2145 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2146 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2147 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2149 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2151 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2152 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2154 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2156 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2157 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2158 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2159 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2161 You probably wrote something like this:
2168 when you should have written this:
2175 If you really want comments, build your list the
2176 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2180 'b', # another comment
2183 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2185 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2186 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2187 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2190 You probably wrote something like this:
2194 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2195 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2199 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2201 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2202 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2203 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2204 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2206 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2208 (S) The old irregular construct
2212 is now misinterpreted as
2216 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2217 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2218 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2221 =item print on closed filehandle %s
2223 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2224 Check your logic flow.
2226 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
2228 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2229 Check your logic flow.
2231 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2233 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2234 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2235 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2239 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2241 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2242 or defined with a different function prototype.
2244 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2246 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2247 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2248 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2249 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2251 =item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
2253 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2254 Check your logic flow.
2256 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2258 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2260 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2262 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2263 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2264 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2266 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2268 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2269 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2271 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2273 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2274 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2276 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2278 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2279 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2280 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2281 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2283 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2284 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2285 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2286 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2288 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2290 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2291 reference count of other than 1.
2293 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2295 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2296 could match an empty string.
2298 =item regexp memory corruption
2300 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2301 expression compiler gave it.
2303 =item regexp out of space
2305 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2307 =item Reversed %s= operator
2309 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2310 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2312 =item Runaway format
2314 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2315 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2316 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2317 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2318 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2320 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2322 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2323 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2324 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2325 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2326 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2327 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2329 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2330 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2331 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2334 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2336 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2337 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2338 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2339 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2340 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2341 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2343 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2344 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2345 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2348 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2350 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2351 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2353 =item Search pattern not terminated
2355 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2356 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2357 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2359 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2361 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2362 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2364 =item select not implemented
2366 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2368 =item sem%s not implemented
2370 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2372 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2374 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2375 that had previously been marked as free.
2377 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2379 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2380 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2382 =item Send on closed socket
2384 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2385 Check your logic flow.
2387 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2389 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2392 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2394 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2395 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2397 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2399 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2400 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2402 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2404 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2409 Also known as "500 Server error".
2411 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2413 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2414 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2415 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2416 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2417 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2418 for more information:
2420 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2421 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2422 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2423 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2424 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2426 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2428 =item setegid() not implemented
2430 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2431 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2434 =item seteuid() not implemented
2436 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2437 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2440 =item setrgid() not implemented
2442 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2443 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2446 =item setruid() not implemented
2448 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2449 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2452 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2454 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2455 because the world might have written on it already.
2457 =item shm%s not implemented
2459 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2461 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2463 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2465 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2467 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2468 put it into the wrong package?
2470 =item sort is now a reserved word
2472 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2473 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2475 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2477 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2478 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2479 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2481 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2483 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2484 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2488 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2489 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2490 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2492 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2494 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2495 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2497 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2499 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2500 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2501 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2502 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2505 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2507 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2508 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2509 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2510 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2511 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2513 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2515 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2516 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2519 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2521 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2525 eval "sub name { ... }";
2528 =item Substitution loop
2530 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2531 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2532 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2533 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2535 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2537 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2538 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2539 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2541 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2543 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2544 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2545 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2547 =item substr outside of string
2549 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2550 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2551 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2552 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2553 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2555 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2557 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2558 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2560 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2562 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2563 real and effective uids or gids.
2567 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2569 A keyword is misspelled.
2570 A semicolon is missing.
2572 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2573 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2574 A closing quote is missing.
2576 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2577 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2578 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2579 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2580 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2581 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2582 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2583 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2584 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2586 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2588 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2589 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2592 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2594 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2595 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2596 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2597 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2599 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2601 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2602 Check your logic flow.
2604 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2606 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2607 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2609 =item tell() on unopened file
2611 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2612 never opened or has since been closed.
2614 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2616 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2617 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2619 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2621 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2622 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2631 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2632 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2634 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2636 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2637 to the probings of Configure.
2639 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2641 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2642 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2643 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2644 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2647 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2649 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2650 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2651 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2653 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL eviron elements (%s)
2655 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2657 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2658 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2659 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2660 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2661 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
2662 %ENV which produced the warning.
2664 =item times not implemented
2666 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2667 you're not running on Unix.
2669 =item Too few args to syscall
2671 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2672 system call to call, silly dilly.
2674 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2676 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2677 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2678 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2679 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2682 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2683 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2684 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2685 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2687 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2688 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2690 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2692 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2693 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2694 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2700 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2701 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2704 =item Too many args to syscall
2706 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2708 =item Too many arguments for %s
2710 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2712 =item trailing \ in regexp
2714 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2717 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
2719 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2720 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
2721 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
2723 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
2725 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2728 =item truncate not implemented
2730 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2731 Configure knows about.
2733 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2735 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2736 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2737 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2738 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2740 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2742 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
2743 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2745 =item umask not implemented
2747 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
2748 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
2750 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2752 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2754 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2756 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2757 contexts were entered and left.
2759 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2761 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2762 values were temporarily localized.
2764 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2766 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2767 were entered and left.
2769 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2771 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2772 scalars were allocated and freed.
2774 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2776 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2777 another package? See L<perlform>.
2779 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2781 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2782 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2784 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2786 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2787 has since been undefined.
2789 =item Undefined subroutine called
2791 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2792 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2794 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2796 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2797 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2799 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2801 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2802 another package? See L<perlform>.
2804 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
2806 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
2807 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
2809 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2811 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2812 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2814 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2816 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2818 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
2820 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
2821 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
2822 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
2823 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
2825 =item unmatched () in regexp
2827 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2828 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2829 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2831 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
2833 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than
2834 opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket.
2835 As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the
2836 place you were last editing.
2838 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2840 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2841 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2844 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2846 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2847 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2848 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2850 =item Unrecognized character %s
2852 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
2853 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
2854 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
2856 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
2858 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
2861 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2863 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2864 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2866 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
2868 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2869 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2870 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2872 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2874 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2875 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2876 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
2878 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2880 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2882 =item Unsupported function fork
2884 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
2886 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
2887 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
2888 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
2890 =item Unsupported function %s
2892 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2893 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2895 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2897 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2898 least that's what Configure thought.
2900 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
2902 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2903 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2904 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2905 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2907 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2909 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
2910 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2912 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2914 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
2915 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2916 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2917 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2919 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2921 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2922 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2924 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
2926 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2927 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
2929 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2931 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2932 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2933 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2935 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
2937 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
2938 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
2939 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
2940 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
2942 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
2943 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
2944 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
2945 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
2946 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
2948 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
2949 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
2950 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
2951 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
2953 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
2954 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
2955 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
2957 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
2959 (D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
2960 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
2961 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
2962 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
2963 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
2964 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
2966 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2968 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2969 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2972 =item Use of uninitialized value
2974 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2975 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2976 warning assign a defined value to your variables.
2978 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
2980 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
2982 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2984 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2985 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2986 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2987 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2988 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2989 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2993 when you meant to say
2995 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2997 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2998 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3003 when you should have said
3007 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3008 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3009 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3010 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3011 L<perlref> for more on this.
3013 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3015 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
3016 valid when C<untie> was called.
3018 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3020 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
3021 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
3022 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
3023 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
3024 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
3026 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3028 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3029 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3030 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3033 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3035 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
3036 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3037 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
3038 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
3039 on the front of your variable.
3041 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3043 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
3044 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
3045 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
3046 the outermost subroutine. For example:
3048 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3050 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3051 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
3052 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3053 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
3054 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
3055 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
3058 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
3059 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
3060 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
3061 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
3063 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3065 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
3066 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3068 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3069 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3070 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3071 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3072 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3073 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3075 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3076 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3077 will I<never> share the given variable.
3079 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3080 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3081 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3082 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3085 =item Variable syntax
3087 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3088 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3091 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3093 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3095 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3096 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3099 are supported and installed on your system.
3100 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3102 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3103 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3104 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3105 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3106 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3107 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3108 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3109 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3110 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3112 =item Warning: something's wrong
3114 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3115 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3117 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3119 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3120 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3122 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3124 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3125 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3126 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3127 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3131 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3135 but in actual fact, you got
3139 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3141 =item Write on closed filehandle
3143 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3144 Check your logic flow.
3146 =item X outside of string
3148 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3149 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3151 =item x outside of string
3153 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3154 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3156 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3158 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3160 =item Xsub called in sort
3162 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3164 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3166 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3167 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3168 Use a filename instead.
3170 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3172 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3173 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3174 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3175 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3177 =item You need to quote "%s"
3179 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3180 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3181 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3182 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3184 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
3186 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3187 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3188 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
3190 =item \1 better written as $1
3192 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3193 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3194 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3195 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3196 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3198 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3200 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3201 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3202 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3204 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3206 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3207 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3208 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3209 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3212 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3219 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3221 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3222 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3224 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3226 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3234 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3235 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3236 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3237 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3239 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3241 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3242 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3244 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3246 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3247 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3248 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3249 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"