3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and
116 transliteration (tr///) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
141 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
143 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
149 or a hash or array slice, such as:
151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
154 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
156 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
157 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
162 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
166 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
168 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
169 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
171 =item assertion botched: %s
173 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
175 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
177 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
179 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
181 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
182 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
183 know which context to supply to the right side.
185 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
187 (F) When vec is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
188 greater than or equal to zero.
190 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
192 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
193 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
194 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
200 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
202 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
203 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
206 bless $self, "$proto";
208 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
210 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
211 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
212 outside any of those arenas.
214 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
216 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
217 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
218 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
219 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
221 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
223 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
224 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
225 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
226 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
229 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
231 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
233 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
235 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
236 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
237 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
238 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
239 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
240 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
243 =item Attempt to join self
245 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
246 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
247 to move the join() to some other thread.
249 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
251 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
252 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
253 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
254 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
255 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
258 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
260 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
261 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
262 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
264 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
266 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
267 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
268 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
269 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
271 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
273 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
274 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
275 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
277 =item Bad filehandle: %s
279 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
280 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
281 open(), or did it in another package.
283 =item Bad free() ignored
285 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
286 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
287 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
289 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
290 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
291 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
295 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
297 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
299 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
300 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
303 =item Badly placed ()'s
305 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
306 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
309 =item Bad name after %s::
311 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
312 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
321 $sym = "mypack::$var";
323 =item Bad realloc() ignored
325 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
326 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
327 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
329 =item Bad symbol for array
331 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
332 wasn't a symbol table entry.
334 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
336 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
337 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
339 =item Bad symbol for hash
341 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
342 wasn't a symbol table entry.
344 =item Bareword found in conditional
346 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
347 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
348 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
352 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
355 use constant TYPO => 1;
356 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
358 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
360 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
362 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
363 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
364 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
366 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
368 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
369 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
370 you need to predeclare a package?
372 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
374 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
375 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
378 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
380 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
381 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
382 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
383 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
384 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
386 =item \1 better written as $1
388 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
389 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
390 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
391 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
392 there are more than 9 backreferences.
394 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
396 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
397 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
398 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
400 =item bind() on closed socket %s
402 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
403 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
405 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
407 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
408 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
410 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
412 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
414 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
416 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
419 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
421 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
422 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
424 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
426 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
427 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
428 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
430 =item Callback called exit
432 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
433 exited by calling exit.
435 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
437 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
438 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
439 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
440 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
441 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
442 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
443 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
444 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
446 =item / cannot take a count
448 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
449 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
452 =item Can't bless non-reference value
454 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
455 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
457 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
459 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
460 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
461 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
463 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
465 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
466 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
467 like this will reproduce the error:
470 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
471 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
473 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
475 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
476 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
477 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
478 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
480 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
482 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
483 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
484 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
485 Something like this will reproduce the error:
488 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
489 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
491 =item Can't chdir to %s
493 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
494 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
496 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
498 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
501 =item Can't coerce array into hash
503 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
504 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
505 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
507 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
509 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
510 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
520 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
522 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
524 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
525 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
527 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
529 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
530 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
532 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
534 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
535 quotas or other plumbing problems.
537 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
539 (S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
540 qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
541 for other types of variables in future.
543 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
545 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
546 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
548 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
550 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
551 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
553 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
555 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
558 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
560 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
561 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
562 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
564 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
566 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
567 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
568 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
570 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m before << HERE in regex m/%s/
572 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
573 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The << HERE shows in the
574 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
576 =item Can't do setegid!
578 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
581 =item Can't do seteuid!
583 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
585 =item Can't do setuid
587 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
588 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
589 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
590 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
591 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
592 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
594 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
596 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
597 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
599 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
601 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
602 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
605 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
607 (W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
608 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
609 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
610 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
611 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
612 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
617 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
618 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
619 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
621 =item Can't execute %s
623 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
624 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
626 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
628 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
629 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
631 =item Can't find label %s
633 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
634 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
636 =item Can't find %s on PATH
638 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
641 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
643 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
644 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
645 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
647 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
649 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
650 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
651 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
653 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
655 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
656 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
657 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
659 =item Can't find %s property definition %s
661 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property for
662 example \p{Lu} is all uppercase letters. Escape the C<\p>, either
663 C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
668 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
671 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
673 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
674 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
675 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
676 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
677 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
678 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
679 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
680 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
681 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
682 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
683 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
684 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
685 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
686 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
687 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
689 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
691 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
692 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
694 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
696 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
697 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
699 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
701 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
702 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
704 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
706 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
707 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
708 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
709 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
711 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
713 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
714 "string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
715 probably don't want to.)
717 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
719 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
720 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
721 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
722 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
724 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
726 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
727 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
728 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
729 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
730 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
731 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
733 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
735 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
736 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
737 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
738 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
739 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
740 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
743 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
745 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
746 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
747 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
750 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
752 (F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
753 reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
754 can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
755 directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
757 =item Can't localize through a reference
759 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
760 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
761 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
762 that $ref will still be a reference.
764 =item Can't locate %s
766 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
767 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
768 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
769 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
770 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
771 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
772 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
774 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
776 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
777 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
778 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
779 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
781 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
783 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
784 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
785 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
787 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
789 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
790 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
791 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
793 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
795 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
796 doesn't seem to exist.
798 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
800 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
803 =item Can't modify %s in %s
805 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
806 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
808 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
810 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
813 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
815 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
816 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
818 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
820 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
823 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
825 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
826 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
827 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
828 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
829 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
830 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
832 =item Can't open %s: %s
834 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
835 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
836 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
837 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
840 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
842 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
843 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
844 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
845 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
847 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
849 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
850 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
851 the command line for writing.
853 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
855 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
856 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
857 command line for reading.
859 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
861 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
862 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
863 the command line for writing.
865 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
867 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
868 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
871 =item Can't open perl script%s: %s
873 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
875 =item Can't read CRTL environ
877 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
878 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
879 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
880 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
883 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
885 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
886 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
887 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
888 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
890 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
892 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
893 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
894 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
895 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
896 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
897 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
899 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
901 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
902 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
903 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
905 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
907 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
908 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
910 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
912 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
913 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
915 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
917 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
918 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
919 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
921 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
923 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
926 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
928 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
929 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
932 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
934 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
935 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
936 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
937 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
940 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
942 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
943 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
945 =item Can't stat script "%s"
947 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
948 open already. Bizarre.
950 =item Can't swap uid and euid
952 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
955 =item Can't take log of %g
957 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
958 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
959 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
962 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
964 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
965 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
966 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
968 =item Can't undef active subroutine
970 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
971 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
972 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
976 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
977 as the main Perl stack.
979 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
981 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
982 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
983 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
984 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
986 =item Can't upgrade to undef
988 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
989 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
992 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
994 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
995 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
997 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
999 (P) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1000 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1001 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1003 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1005 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1006 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1008 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1010 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1011 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1012 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1014 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1016 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1019 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1021 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1022 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1023 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1024 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1027 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1029 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1030 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1031 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1032 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1035 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1037 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1038 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1039 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1041 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1043 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1044 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1046 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1048 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1049 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1050 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1052 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1054 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1055 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1056 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1057 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1058 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1061 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1063 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1064 references can be weakened.
1066 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1068 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1069 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1070 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1072 =item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
1074 (W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
1076 chmod 777, $filename
1078 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1079 equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1082 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1084 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1086 =item %s: Command not found
1088 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1089 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1091 =item Compilation failed in require
1093 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1094 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1095 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1097 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1099 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1100 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1101 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1102 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1103 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1104 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1105 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1106 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1107 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1109 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1111 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1112 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1113 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1115 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1117 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1118 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1119 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1120 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1123 =item Constant is not %s reference
1125 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1126 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1127 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1128 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1129 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1131 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1133 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1134 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1135 commentary and workarounds.
1137 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1139 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1140 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1143 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1145 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1146 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1148 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1150 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1152 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1154 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1155 expression compiler gave it.
1157 =item corrupted regexp program
1159 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1162 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1164 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1166 =item C<-p> destination: %s
1168 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1169 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1170 redirected it with select().)
1172 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1174 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1175 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1177 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1179 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1180 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1181 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1182 which case it indicates something else.
1184 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1186 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1187 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1188 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1190 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1192 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1193 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1194 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1196 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1198 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1199 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1200 that triggers this error.
1202 =item Did not produce a valid header
1206 =item %s did not return a true value
1208 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1209 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1210 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1211 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1213 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1215 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1218 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1220 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1221 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1224 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1226 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1227 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1232 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1233 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1235 =item Document contains no data
1239 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1241 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1243 =item do_study: out of memory
1245 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1247 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1249 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1250 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1251 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1252 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1253 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1254 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1255 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1256 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1258 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1260 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1263 =item elseif should be elsif
1265 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1266 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1267 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1268 unlikely to be what you want.
1270 =item entering effective %s failed
1272 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1273 effective uids or gids failed.
1275 =item Error converting file specification %s
1277 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1278 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1279 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1280 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1281 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1283 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1285 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1286 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1287 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1289 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1291 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1292 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1293 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1294 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1295 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1296 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1298 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1300 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1301 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1302 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1304 =item Excessively long <> operator
1306 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1307 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1308 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1309 variable and glob that.
1311 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1313 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1315 =item Exiting eval via %s
1317 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1318 goto, or a loop control statement.
1320 =item Exiting format via %s
1322 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1323 goto, or a loop control statement.
1325 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1327 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1328 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1329 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1331 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1333 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1334 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1336 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1338 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1339 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1341 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1343 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1344 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1345 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1346 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1348 =item %s: Expression syntax
1350 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1351 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1353 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1355 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1356 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1357 routines has been prematurely ended.
1359 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1361 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1362 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The
1363 "-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider
1364 quoting the "-", "\-". See L<perlre>.
1366 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1368 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1369 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1370 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1371 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1373 =item fcntl is not implemented
1375 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1376 PDP-11 or something?
1378 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1380 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1381 to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1382 or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1383 the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1385 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1387 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1388 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1389 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1390 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1392 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1394 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1395 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1396 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1399 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1401 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1402 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1403 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1406 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1408 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1409 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1410 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1413 =item Quantifier follows nothing before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1415 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
1416 meant it literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1417 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1419 =item Format not terminated
1421 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1422 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1424 =item Format %s redefined
1426 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1430 eval "format NAME =...";
1433 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1443 (or something like that).
1445 =item %s found where operator expected
1447 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1448 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1449 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1450 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1452 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1454 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1456 =item gethostent not implemented
1458 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1459 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1462 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1464 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1465 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1467 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1469 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1470 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1472 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1474 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1475 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1476 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1478 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1480 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1481 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1482 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1485 =item glob failed (%s)
1487 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1488 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1489 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1490 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1491 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1492 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1493 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1494 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1495 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1496 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1497 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1499 =item Glob not terminated
1501 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1502 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1503 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1504 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1506 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1508 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1509 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1511 =item goto must have label
1513 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1514 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1516 =item %s had compilation errors
1518 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1520 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1522 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1523 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1524 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1526 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1528 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1529 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1531 =item %s has too many errors
1533 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1534 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1536 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1538 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1539 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1540 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1542 =item Identifier too long
1544 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1545 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1546 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1547 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1549 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1551 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1553 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1555 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1556 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1559 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1561 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1562 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1563 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1564 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1565 to your Perl administrator.
1567 =item Illegal division by zero
1569 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1570 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1573 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1575 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1576 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1577 number stopped before the illegal character.
1579 =item Illegal modulus zero
1581 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1582 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1584 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1586 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1587 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1589 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1591 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1593 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1595 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1596 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1598 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1600 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1601 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1603 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1605 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1606 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1607 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1609 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1611 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1612 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1613 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1616 =item (in cleanup) %s
1618 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1619 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1620 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1621 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1622 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1624 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1625 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1627 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1629 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1630 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1631 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1632 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1633 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1634 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1635 L<perlsec> for more information.
1637 =item Insecure directory in %s
1639 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1640 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1641 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1643 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1645 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1646 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1647 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1648 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1649 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1651 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1653 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1654 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1655 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1656 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1657 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1658 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1659 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1660 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1663 =item Internal disaster before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1665 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1666 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1670 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1672 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1673 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1674 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1675 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1676 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1677 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1679 =item Internal urp before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1681 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The <<<HERE
1682 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1685 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1687 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1688 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1689 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1690 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1692 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1694 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1695 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1697 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1699 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1700 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1702 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1704 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1705 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1707 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1709 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1710 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1712 =item invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1714 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1715 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1717 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1719 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1720 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1721 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1724 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1726 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1727 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1730 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1732 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1734 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1737 =item ioctl is not implemented
1739 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1740 strange for a machine that supports C.
1742 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
1744 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1745 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1747 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
1749 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
1750 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
1752 =item `%s' is not a code reference
1754 (W) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant needs
1755 to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1758 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1760 (W) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is unaware of.
1762 =item junk on end of regexp
1764 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1766 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1768 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1769 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1772 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1774 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1775 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1778 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1780 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1781 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1784 =item leaving effective %s failed
1786 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1787 effective uids or gids failed.
1789 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1791 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1792 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1795 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1797 (W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1798 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1799 instead on the filehandle.)
1801 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1803 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1804 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1805 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1807 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented before << HERE %s
1809 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
1810 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The << HERE shows in
1811 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1813 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1815 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1823 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1824 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1825 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1826 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1828 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1830 Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1832 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1834 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1835 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1837 =item %s matches null string many times
1839 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1840 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See
1843 =item % may only be used in unpack
1845 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
1846 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1847 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1849 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1851 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1852 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1854 =item Method %s not permitted
1858 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1860 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1861 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1862 ended earlier on the current line.
1864 =item Misplaced _ in number
1866 (W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1868 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1870 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1871 double-quotish context.
1873 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1875 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1876 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1878 =item Missing command in piped open
1880 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1881 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1884 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1886 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1887 they have a name with which they can be found.
1889 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1891 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1892 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1893 can vary from one line to the next.
1895 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
1897 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1898 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1900 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1902 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1903 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1906 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1908 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1909 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1910 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1912 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1914 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1915 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1916 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1918 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1921 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1923 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
1924 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
1927 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
1928 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
1931 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
1933 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1934 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1937 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
1939 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1940 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
1942 =item Module name must be constant
1944 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1946 =item Module name required with -%c option
1948 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1949 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1950 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
1952 =item msg%s not implemented
1954 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1956 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1958 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
1959 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1961 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
1963 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
1964 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
1965 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1967 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1969 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
1970 must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
1971 of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1973 =item / must follow a numeric type
1975 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
1976 follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1978 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
1980 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
1983 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
1985 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
1986 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
1987 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
1989 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1991 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1992 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1993 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1994 provided for this purpose.
1996 =item Negative length
1998 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
1999 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2001 =item Nested quantifiers before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2003 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2004 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The << HERE shows in the regular
2005 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2007 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2008 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2011 =item %s never introduced
2013 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2014 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2016 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2018 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2019 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2020 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2021 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2023 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2025 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2027 =item No comma allowed after %s
2029 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2030 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2031 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2033 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2034 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2035 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2036 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2037 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2038 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2039 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2040 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2041 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2042 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2043 this error was triggered?
2045 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2047 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2048 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2049 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2051 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2053 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2054 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2055 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2056 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2057 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2059 =item No dbm on this machine
2061 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2062 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2064 =item No DBsub routine
2066 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2067 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2068 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2069 ordinary subroutine call.
2071 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2073 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2074 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2075 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2077 =item No input file after < on command line
2079 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2080 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2081 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2085 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2086 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2088 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2090 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2091 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2093 =item No output file after > on command line
2095 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2096 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2097 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2099 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2101 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2102 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2103 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2105 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2107 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2108 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2109 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2111 =item No Perl script found in input
2113 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2114 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2116 =item No setregid available
2118 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2121 =item No setreuid available
2123 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2126 =item No space allowed after -%c
2128 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2129 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2131 =item No %s specified for -%c
2133 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2134 you haven't specified one.
2136 =item No such pipe open
2138 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2139 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2140 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2142 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2144 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2145 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2146 array indices for that to work.
2148 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2150 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2151 not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2152 %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2153 %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2155 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2157 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2158 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2159 names on your system.
2161 =item Not a CODE reference
2163 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2164 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2165 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2168 =item Not a format reference
2170 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2171 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2173 =item Not a GLOB reference
2175 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2176 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2177 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2178 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2180 =item Not a HASH reference
2182 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2183 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2184 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2186 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2188 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2189 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2190 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2192 =item Not a perl script
2194 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2195 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2198 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2200 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2201 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2202 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2204 =item Not a subroutine reference
2206 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2207 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2208 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2211 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2213 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2214 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2216 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2218 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2220 =item Not enough format arguments
2222 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2223 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2227 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2228 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2231 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2233 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2234 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2235 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2236 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2237 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2239 =item Null filename used
2241 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2242 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2244 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2246 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2249 =item Null picture in formline
2251 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2252 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2253 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2257 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2259 =item NULL regexp argument
2261 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2263 =item NULL regexp parameter
2265 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2267 =item Number too long
2269 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2270 about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2271 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2272 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2275 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2277 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2278 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2281 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2283 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2284 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2285 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2287 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2289 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2291 (W) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of arguments.
2292 The arguments should come in pairs.
2294 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2296 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2297 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2299 =item Offset outside string
2301 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2302 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2303 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2304 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2306 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2308 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2309 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2311 =item %s() on unopened %s
2313 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2314 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2315 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2319 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2323 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2325 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2327 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2328 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2329 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2330 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2332 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2334 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2335 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2336 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2337 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2340 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2342 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2343 in the current lexical scope.
2345 =item Out of memory!
2347 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2348 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2349 no option but to exit immediately.
2351 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2353 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2354 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2355 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2356 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2358 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2360 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2361 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2364 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2365 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2366 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2367 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2368 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2369 where the failed request happened.
2371 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2373 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2374 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2375 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2377 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2379 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2380 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2383 =item @ outside of string
2385 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2386 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2388 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2390 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2391 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2392 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2393 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2397 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2398 page. See L<perlform>.
2402 (P) An internal error.
2404 =item panic: ck_grep
2406 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2408 =item panic: ck_split
2410 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2412 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2414 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2415 there are in the savestack.
2417 =item panic: del_backref
2419 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2424 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2425 it wasn't an eval context.
2427 =item panic: pp_match
2429 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2432 =item panic: do_subst
2434 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2437 =item panic: do_trans_%s
2439 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
2444 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2448 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2449 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2451 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2453 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2455 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2457 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2459 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2461 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2465 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2466 it wasn't a block context.
2468 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2470 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2473 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2475 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2476 invalid enum on the top of it.
2478 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2480 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2481 references to an object.
2485 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2487 =item panic: mapstart
2489 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2491 =item panic: null array
2493 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2495 =item panic: pad_alloc
2497 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2498 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2500 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2502 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2503 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2505 =item panic: pad_free po
2507 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2509 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2511 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2512 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2514 =item panic: pad_sv po
2516 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2518 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2520 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2521 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2523 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2525 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2527 =item panic: pp_iter
2529 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2531 =item panic: pp_split
2533 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2535 =item panic: realloc
2537 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2539 =item panic: restartop
2541 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2542 didn't supply the destination.
2546 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2547 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2549 =item panic: scan_num
2551 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2553 =item panic: sv_insert
2555 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2558 =item panic: top_env
2560 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2564 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2566 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2568 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2569 to even) byte length.
2571 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2573 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2579 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2581 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2583 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2585 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2586 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2587 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2589 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2591 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2592 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2594 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2596 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2598 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2599 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2602 are supported and installed on your system.
2603 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2605 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2606 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2607 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2608 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2609 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2610 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2611 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2612 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2613 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2614 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2616 =item perlio: argument list not closed for layer "%s"
2618 (S) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you forgot
2619 the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
2620 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
2621 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
2622 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
2623 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2625 =item perlio: invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2627 (S) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2628 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of an layer list.
2629 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2630 list was terminated too soon.
2632 =item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2634 (S) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
2635 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2636 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2637 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2638 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2639 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2641 =item Permission denied
2643 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2645 =item pid %x not a child
2647 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2648 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2649 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2651 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
2653 (W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2654 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for
2655 example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not
2656 currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future
2657 extensions and will cause fatal errors.
2659 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
2661 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2662 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future
2663 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2664 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2665 with the backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
2667 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
2669 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2670 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future
2671 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2672 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2673 with the backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
2675 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown
2677 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. See
2680 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2682 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2683 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2685 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2687 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2688 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2689 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2690 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2692 You probably wrote something like this:
2699 when you should have written this:
2706 If you really want comments, build your list the
2707 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2711 'b', # another comment
2714 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2716 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2717 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2718 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2721 You probably wrote something like this:
2725 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2726 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2730 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2732 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2733 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2734 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2735 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2737 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2739 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2740 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2742 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2744 (W deprecated) You have written something like this:
2748 use attrs qw(locked);
2751 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2757 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2758 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2760 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2762 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2766 is now misinterpreted as
2770 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2771 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2772 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2775 =item Premature end of script headers
2779 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2781 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2782 before now. Check your control flow.
2784 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2786 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2787 before now. Check your control flow.
2789 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2791 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2792 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2793 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2794 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
2797 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2799 (S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2800 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
2802 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2804 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
2805 {min,max} construct. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
2806 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2808 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression before << HERE %s
2810 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2811 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2812 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2813 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2814 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2816 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2818 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2819 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2820 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2821 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2823 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2825 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2826 before now. Check your control flow.
2828 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2830 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2832 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2834 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2837 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2839 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2840 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2841 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2843 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2845 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2846 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2848 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
2850 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2851 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2854 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2856 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2857 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2858 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2859 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2861 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2862 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2863 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2864 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2866 =item Reference is already weak
2868 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2869 Doing so has no effect.
2871 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2873 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2874 a reference count of other than 1.
2876 =item Reference to nonexistent group before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2878 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
2879 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
2880 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
2881 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
2883 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2886 =item regexp memory corruption
2888 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2889 expression compiler gave it.
2891 =item Regexp out of space
2893 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2896 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
2898 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2899 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2901 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2903 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2904 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2906 =item Reversed %s= operator
2908 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2909 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2911 =item Runaway format
2913 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2914 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2915 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2916 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2917 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2919 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2921 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2922 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2923 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2924 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2925 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2926 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2927 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2929 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2930 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2931 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2934 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2936 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
2937 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
2938 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
2939 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2940 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2941 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2942 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2944 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
2945 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
2946 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2949 =item Scalars leaked: %d
2951 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
2952 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
2953 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
2954 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
2956 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2958 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2959 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2961 =item Search pattern not terminated
2963 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2964 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2965 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2967 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
2969 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
2970 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2972 =item select not implemented
2974 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2976 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
2978 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
2979 the current implementation.
2981 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2983 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
2984 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2986 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2988 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
2989 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
2991 =item sem%s not implemented
2993 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2995 =item send() on closed socket %s
2997 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
2998 before now. Check your control flow.
3000 =item Sequence (? incomplete before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3002 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <<<HERE
3003 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3006 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in %s
3008 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3009 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. See L<perlre>.
3011 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented before << HERE mark in %s
3013 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3014 has not yet been written. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
3015 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3017 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized before << HERE mark in %s
3019 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
3020 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
3021 where the problem was discovered.
3024 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
3026 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3027 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
3029 =item 500 Server error
3035 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3036 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3037 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3038 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3039 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3040 produce a valid header".
3042 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3044 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3045 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3046 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3047 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3048 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3049 Please see the following for more information:
3051 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
3052 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
3053 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
3054 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
3055 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
3057 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3059 =item setegid() not implemented
3061 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3062 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3065 =item seteuid() not implemented
3067 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3068 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3071 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3073 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3074 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3077 =item setrgid() not implemented
3079 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3080 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3083 =item setruid() not implemented
3085 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3086 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3089 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3091 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3092 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3093 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3095 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3097 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3098 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3100 =item shm%s not implemented
3102 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3104 =item <> should be quotes
3106 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3109 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3111 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3112 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3113 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3114 probably not what you had in mind.
3116 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3118 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3121 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3123 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3124 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3126 =item sort is now a reserved word
3128 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3129 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3131 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3133 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3134 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3135 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3137 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3139 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3140 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3144 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3145 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3146 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3148 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3150 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3151 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3152 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3153 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3156 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3158 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3159 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3161 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3163 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3164 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3165 C<can> may break this.
3167 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3169 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3173 eval "sub name { ... }";
3176 =item Substitution loop
3178 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3179 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3180 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3181 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3183 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3185 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3186 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3187 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3189 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3191 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3192 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3193 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3195 =item substr outside of string
3197 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3198 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3199 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3200 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3201 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3203 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3205 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3206 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3208 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches before << HE%s
3210 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3211 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3212 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3213 clustering parentheses:
3215 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3217 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3218 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3220 =item Switch condition not recognized before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3222 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3223 number, it can be only a number. The << HERE shows in the regular expression
3224 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3226 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3228 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3229 and effective uids or gids.
3233 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3235 A keyword is misspelled.
3236 A semicolon is missing.
3238 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3239 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3240 A closing quote is missing.
3242 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3243 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3244 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3245 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3246 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3247 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3248 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3249 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3250 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3253 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3255 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3256 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3261 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3263 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3265 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3266 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3267 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3268 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3270 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3272 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3273 before now. Check your control flow.
3275 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3277 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3278 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3280 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3282 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3283 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3285 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3287 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3288 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3297 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3298 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3300 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3302 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3303 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3304 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3305 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3308 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3310 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3311 to the probings of Configure.
3313 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3315 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3316 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3317 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3320 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3322 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3324 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3325 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3326 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3327 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3328 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3329 target of the change to
3330 %ENV which produced the warning.
3332 =item times not implemented
3334 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3335 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3337 =item Too few args to syscall
3339 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3340 system call to call, silly dilly.
3342 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3344 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3345 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3346 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3347 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3350 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3351 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3352 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3353 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3355 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3356 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3358 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3360 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3361 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3362 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3364 =item Too late to run %s block
3366 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3367 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3368 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3369 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3372 =item Too many args to syscall
3374 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3376 =item Too many arguments for %s
3378 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3382 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3383 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3387 =item trailing \ in regexp
3389 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3390 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3392 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3394 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3395 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3396 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3398 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3400 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3403 =item truncate not implemented
3405 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3406 Configure knows about.
3408 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3410 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3411 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3412 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3413 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3415 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3417 (W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3418 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3420 =item umask not implemented
3422 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3423 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3425 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3427 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3429 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3431 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3432 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3434 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3436 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3437 many values were temporarily localized.
3439 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3441 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3442 many blocks were entered and left.
3444 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3446 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3447 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3449 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3451 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3452 another package? See L<perlform>.
3454 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3456 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3457 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3459 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3461 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3462 since been undefined.
3464 =item Undefined subroutine called
3466 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3467 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3469 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3471 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3472 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3474 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3476 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3477 another package? See L<perlform>.
3479 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3481 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3482 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3485 =item %s: Undefined variable
3487 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3488 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3490 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3492 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3493 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3496 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3498 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3501 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3503 (F) The condition of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct is not
3504 known. The condition may be lookaround (the condition is true if the
3505 lookaround is true), a (?{...}) construct (the condition is true if the
3506 code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the condition is true if the
3507 set of capturing parentheses named by the number is defined).
3509 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3510 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3512 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3514 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3515 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3516 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3518 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3520 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3521 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3522 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3523 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3525 =item unmatched [ before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3527 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3528 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3529 first. See L<perlre>. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
3530 where the escape was discovered.
3532 =item unmatched ( in regexp before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3534 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3535 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3536 matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3538 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3540 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3541 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3542 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3543 you were last editing.
3545 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3547 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3548 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3549 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3552 =item Unrecognized character %s
3554 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3555 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3556 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3558 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3560 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3561 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3562 understood literally.
3564 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through before << HERE in m/%s/
3566 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3567 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
3568 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
3569 literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the escape
3573 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3575 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3578 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3580 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3581 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3584 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3586 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3587 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3588 bad switch on your behalf.)
3590 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3592 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3593 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3594 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3596 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3598 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3600 =item Unsupported function %s
3602 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3603 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3605 =item Unsupported function fork
3607 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3609 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3610 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3611 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3613 =item Unsupported script encoding
3615 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3616 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3618 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3620 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3621 least that's what Configure thought.
3623 =item Unterminated attribute list
3625 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3626 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3627 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3628 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3630 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3632 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3633 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3634 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3635 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3637 =item Unterminated compressed integer
3639 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3640 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3641 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3643 =item Unterminated <> operator
3645 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3646 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3647 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3648 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3650 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3652 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3653 still valid when C<untie> was called.
3655 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3657 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3658 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3659 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3660 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3661 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3662 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3667 when you meant to say
3669 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3671 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3672 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3677 when you should have said
3681 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3682 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3683 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3684 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3685 L<perlref> for more on this.
3687 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3689 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3691 =item Useless use of %s with no values
3693 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
3694 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
3695 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
3696 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
3697 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
3698 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
3700 =item "use" not allowed in expression
3702 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3703 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3705 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3707 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
3708 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3710 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3712 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
3713 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
3714 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3716 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3718 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
3719 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
3720 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
3721 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
3724 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
3725 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
3726 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
3727 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
3730 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3731 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
3732 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
3733 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
3736 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
3737 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3738 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3740 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3742 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3743 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3745 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3747 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
3748 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
3749 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
3750 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3752 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3754 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
3755 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
3756 old way has bad side effects.
3758 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3760 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
3761 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3763 =item Use of reference "%s" in array index
3765 (W) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
3766 isn't what you mean, because references tend to be huge numbers which
3767 take you out of memory, and so usually indicates programmer error.
3769 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
3772 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3774 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
3775 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
3776 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
3777 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
3778 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
3779 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3781 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3783 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
3784 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
3785 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3787 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
3788 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
3789 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
3790 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
3791 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
3792 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
3795 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3797 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
3798 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
3799 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
3800 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
3801 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
3802 C<defined> operator.
3804 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3806 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
3807 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
3808 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
3811 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3813 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
3814 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3815 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
3816 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
3817 front of your variable.
3819 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
3821 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
3822 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
3823 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
3824 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
3825 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
3827 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3829 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
3830 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
3831 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
3832 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
3834 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3836 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3837 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
3838 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3839 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
3840 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
3841 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
3843 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
3844 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
3845 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
3846 between interferes with this feature.
3848 =item Variable syntax
3850 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3851 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3854 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3856 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
3857 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3859 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3860 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
3861 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
3862 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
3863 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
3864 variable will no longer be shared.
3866 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3867 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3868 will I<never> share the given variable.
3870 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3871 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3872 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
3873 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
3875 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented before << HERE in %s
3877 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
3878 known at compile time. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3879 the problem was discovered.
3881 =item Version number must be a constant number
3883 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3884 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3887 =item Warning: something's wrong
3889 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3890 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3892 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3894 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
3895 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
3898 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3900 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
3901 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
3902 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
3903 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3907 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3911 but in actual fact, you got
3915 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3917 =item Wide character in %s
3919 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting one.
3921 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
3923 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3924 before now. Check your control flow.
3926 =item X outside of string
3928 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3929 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3931 =item x outside of string
3933 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3934 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3936 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3938 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3941 =item Xsub called in sort
3943 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3946 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3948 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
3949 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3950 Use a filename instead.
3952 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3954 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3955 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3956 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in the
3957 eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3959 =item You need to quote "%s"
3961 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
3962 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
3963 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
3964 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
3965 what you want, put an & in front.)