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 (enabled by 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<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
141 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
143 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
149 or a hash or array slice, such as:
151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
154 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
156 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
157 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
162 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
166 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
168 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
169 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
170 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
171 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
172 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
173 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
175 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
177 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
178 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
180 =item assertion botched: %s
182 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
184 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
186 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
188 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
190 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
191 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
192 know which context to supply to the right side.
194 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
196 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
197 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
198 Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
199 created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
200 thread. See L<threads>.
202 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
204 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
205 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
207 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
209 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
210 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
211 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
217 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
219 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
220 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
223 bless $self, "$proto";
225 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
227 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
228 which is not in its key set.
230 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
232 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
233 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
235 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
237 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
238 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
239 outside any of those arenas.
241 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
243 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
244 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
245 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
246 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
248 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
250 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
251 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
252 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
253 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
256 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
258 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
260 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
262 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
263 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
264 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
265 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
266 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
267 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
270 =item Attempt to join self
272 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
273 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
274 to move the join() to some other thread.
276 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
278 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
279 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
280 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
281 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
282 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
285 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
287 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
288 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
289 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
292 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
294 (W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
295 can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
296 of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
298 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
301 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
303 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
304 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
305 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
307 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
309 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
310 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
311 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
312 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
314 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
316 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
317 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
318 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
320 =item Bad filehandle: %s
322 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
323 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
324 open(), or did it in another package.
326 =item Bad free() ignored
328 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
329 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
330 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
332 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
333 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
334 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
338 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
340 =item Badly placed ()'s
342 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
343 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
346 =item Bad name after %s::
348 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
349 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
358 $sym = "mypack::$var";
360 =item Bad realloc() ignored
362 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
363 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
364 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
366 =item Bad symbol for array
368 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
369 wasn't a symbol table entry.
371 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
373 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
374 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
377 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
379 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
380 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
382 =item Bad symbol for hash
384 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
385 wasn't a symbol table entry.
387 =item Bareword found in conditional
389 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
390 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
391 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
395 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
398 use constant TYPO => 1;
399 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
401 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
403 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
405 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
406 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
407 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
409 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
411 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
412 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
413 you need to predeclare a package?
415 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
417 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
418 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
421 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
423 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
424 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
425 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
426 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
427 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
429 =item \1 better written as $1
431 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
432 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
433 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
434 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
435 there are more than 9 backreferences.
437 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
439 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
440 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
441 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
443 =item bind() on closed socket %s
445 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
446 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
448 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
450 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
451 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
453 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
455 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
457 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
459 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
462 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
464 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
465 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
466 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
468 =item Callback called exit
470 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
471 exited by calling exit.
473 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
475 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
476 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
477 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
478 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
479 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
480 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
481 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
482 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
484 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
486 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
487 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
488 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
489 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
491 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
493 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
494 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
496 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
498 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
499 then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
500 triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
501 from that type of reference to a typeglob.
503 =item Cannot copy to %s in %s
505 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
506 be directly assigned not.
508 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
510 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
511 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
512 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
514 =item Can't bless non-reference value
516 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
517 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
519 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
521 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
522 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
524 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
526 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
528 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
530 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
531 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
532 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
534 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
536 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
537 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
538 like this will reproduce the error:
541 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
542 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
544 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
546 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
547 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
548 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
549 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
551 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
553 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
554 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
555 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
556 Something like this will reproduce the error:
559 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
560 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
562 =item Can't chdir to %s
564 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
565 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
567 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
569 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
572 =item Can't coerce array into hash
574 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
575 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
576 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
578 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
580 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
581 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
591 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
593 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
595 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
596 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
598 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
600 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
601 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
603 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
605 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
608 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
610 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
611 quotas or other plumbing problems.
613 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
615 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
616 class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration. The semantics may be
617 extended for other types of variables in future.
619 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
621 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
622 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
624 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
626 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
627 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
629 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
631 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
634 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
636 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
637 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
638 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
640 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
642 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
643 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
644 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
646 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
648 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
649 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
650 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
652 =item Can't do setegid!
654 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
657 =item Can't do seteuid!
659 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
661 =item Can't do setuid
663 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
664 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
665 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
666 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
667 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
668 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
670 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
672 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
673 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
675 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
677 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
678 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
681 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
683 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
684 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
685 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
686 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
688 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
690 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
691 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
692 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
693 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
694 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
695 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
700 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
701 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
702 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
704 =item Can't execute %s
706 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
707 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
709 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
711 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
712 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
714 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
716 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
717 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
718 (remember that the names of character properties consist only of
719 alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
721 =item Can't find label %s
723 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
724 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
726 =item Can't find %s on PATH
728 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
731 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
733 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
734 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
735 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
737 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
739 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
740 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
741 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
743 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
745 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
746 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
747 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
749 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
751 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
752 example C<\p{Lu}> is all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
753 Unicode property, see L<perlunicode> for the list of known properties.
754 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
755 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
760 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
763 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
765 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
766 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
767 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
768 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
769 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
770 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
771 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
772 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
773 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
774 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
775 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
776 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
777 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
778 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
779 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
781 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
783 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
784 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
786 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
788 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
789 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
791 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
793 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
794 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
796 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
798 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
799 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
800 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
801 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
803 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
805 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
806 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
807 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
809 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
811 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
814 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
816 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
817 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
818 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
819 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
821 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
823 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
824 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
825 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
826 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
827 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
828 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
830 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
832 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
833 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
834 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
835 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
836 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
837 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
840 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
842 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
843 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
845 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
847 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
848 may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
849 incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
850 between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
851 extension was built against an older version of the library that is
852 installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
855 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
857 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
858 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
859 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
862 =item Can't localize through a reference
864 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
865 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
866 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
867 that $ref will still be a reference.
869 =item Can't locate %s
871 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
872 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
873 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
874 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
875 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
876 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
877 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
879 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
881 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
882 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
883 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
884 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
886 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
888 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
889 for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
890 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
892 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
894 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
895 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
896 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
898 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
900 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
901 doesn't seem to exist.
903 =item Can't locate package %s for the parents of %s
905 (W syntax) You did not define (or require/use) the first package,
906 which is named as a (possibly indirect) parent of the second by
907 C<@ISA> inheritance. Perl will treat this as if the undefined
908 package had an empty C<@ISA>.
910 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
912 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
913 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
915 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
917 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
920 =item Can't modify %s in %s
922 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
923 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
925 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
927 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
930 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
932 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
933 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
935 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
937 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
940 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
942 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
943 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
944 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
945 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
946 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
947 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
949 =item Can't open %s: %s
951 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
952 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
953 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
954 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
957 =item Can't open a reference
959 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
960 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
964 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
965 open is not supported.
967 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
969 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
970 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
971 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
972 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
974 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
976 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
977 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
978 the command line for writing.
980 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
982 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
983 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
984 command line for reading.
986 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
988 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
989 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
990 the command line for writing.
992 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
994 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
995 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
998 =item Can't open perl script%s
1000 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1002 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1003 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1004 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1006 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1008 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1009 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1010 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1011 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1014 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1016 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1017 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1018 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1019 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1020 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1021 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1023 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1025 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1026 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1027 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1029 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1031 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1032 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1034 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1036 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1037 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1039 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1041 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1042 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1043 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1045 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
1047 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1050 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1052 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1053 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1056 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1058 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1059 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1061 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1063 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1064 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1065 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1066 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1069 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1071 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1072 open already. Bizarre.
1074 =item Can't swap uid and euid
1076 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1079 =item Can't take log of %g
1081 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1082 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1083 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1086 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1088 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1089 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1090 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1092 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1094 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1095 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1096 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1100 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1101 as the main Perl stack.
1103 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1105 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1106 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1107 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1108 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1110 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1112 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1113 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1114 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1116 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1118 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1119 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1121 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1123 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1124 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1126 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1128 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1129 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1130 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1132 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1134 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1135 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1136 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1138 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1140 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1143 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1145 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1146 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1147 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1148 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1151 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1153 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1154 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1155 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1156 is inside a big-endian group.
1158 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1160 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1161 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1162 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1163 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1166 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1168 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1169 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1170 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1172 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1174 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1175 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1177 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1179 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1180 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1181 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1183 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1185 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1186 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1187 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1188 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1189 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1192 =item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
1194 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1195 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1196 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1197 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1199 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1201 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1202 references can be weakened.
1204 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1206 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1207 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1208 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1210 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1216 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1217 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1218 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1222 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1225 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1231 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1232 all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1235 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1237 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1243 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1244 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1245 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1247 pack("c", $x & 255);
1249 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1252 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1254 (W unpack) You tried something like
1256 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1258 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1259 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1260 modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1262 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1264 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1266 (W pack) You tried something like
1268 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1270 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1271 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1272 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1274 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1276 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1278 (W unpack) You tried something like
1280 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1282 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1283 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1284 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1286 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1288 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1290 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1292 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1294 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1295 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1297 =item Code missing after '/'
1299 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1300 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1302 =item %s: Command not found
1304 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1305 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1307 =item Compilation failed in require
1309 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1310 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1311 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1313 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1315 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1316 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1317 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1318 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1319 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1320 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1321 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1322 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1323 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1325 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1327 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1328 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1329 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1330 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1331 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1332 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1333 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1336 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1338 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1339 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1340 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1341 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1342 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1343 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1344 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1347 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1349 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1350 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1351 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1353 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1355 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1356 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1357 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1358 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1361 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1363 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1364 the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1365 forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
1369 =item Constant is not %s reference
1371 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1372 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1373 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1374 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1375 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1377 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1379 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1380 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1381 commentary and workarounds.
1383 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1385 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1386 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1389 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1391 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1392 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1394 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1396 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1398 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1400 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1401 expression compiler gave it.
1403 =item corrupted regexp program
1405 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1408 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1410 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1412 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1414 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1415 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1418 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1420 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1421 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1422 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1423 which case it indicates something else.
1425 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1427 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1428 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1429 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1431 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1433 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1434 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1435 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1437 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1439 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1440 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1442 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1444 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1445 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1446 that triggers this error.
1448 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1450 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1451 There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1452 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1453 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1454 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1455 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1456 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1458 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1462 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1464 Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1465 have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1467 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1469 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1471 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1472 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1473 to create a dangling reference.
1475 =item Did not produce a valid header
1479 =item %s did not return a true value
1481 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1482 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1483 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1484 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1486 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1488 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1491 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1493 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1494 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1497 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1499 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1500 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1505 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1506 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1508 =item Document contains no data
1512 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1514 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1515 define a C<$VERSION.>
1517 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1519 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1520 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1522 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1524 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1526 =item do_study: out of memory
1528 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1530 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1532 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1533 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1534 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1535 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1536 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1537 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1538 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1539 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1541 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1543 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1544 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1546 =item dump is not supported
1548 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1550 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1552 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1555 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1557 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1558 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1560 =item elseif should be elsif
1562 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1563 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1564 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1565 unlikely to be what you want.
1569 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1570 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1571 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1573 =item entering effective %s failed
1575 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1576 effective uids or gids failed.
1578 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1580 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1581 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1582 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1584 =item Error converting file specification %s
1586 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1587 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1588 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1589 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1590 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1592 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1594 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1595 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1596 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1598 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1600 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1601 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1602 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1603 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1604 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1605 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1607 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1609 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1610 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1611 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1613 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1615 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1616 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1618 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1621 =item Excessively long <> operator
1623 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1624 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1625 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1626 variable and glob that.
1628 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1630 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1632 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1634 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1636 =item Exiting eval via %s
1638 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1639 goto, or a loop control statement.
1641 =item Exiting format via %s
1643 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1644 goto, or a loop control statement.
1646 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1648 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1649 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1650 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1652 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1654 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1655 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1657 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1659 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1660 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1662 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1664 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1665 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1666 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1667 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1669 =item %s: Expression syntax
1671 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1672 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1674 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1676 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1677 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1678 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1680 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1682 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1683 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1684 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1685 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1686 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1688 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1690 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1691 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1692 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1693 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1695 =item fcntl is not implemented
1697 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1698 PDP-11 or something?
1700 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1702 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1705 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1707 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1708 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1709 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1712 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1714 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1715 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1716 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1717 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1719 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1721 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1722 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1723 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1724 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1725 Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1726 (also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1728 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1730 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1731 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1734 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1736 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1737 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
1739 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1741 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1742 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1743 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1746 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1748 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1749 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1750 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1753 =item Format not terminated
1755 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1756 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1758 =item Format %s redefined
1760 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1763 no warnings 'redefine';
1764 eval "format NAME =...";
1767 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1777 (or something like that).
1779 =item %s found where operator expected
1781 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1782 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1783 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1784 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1786 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1788 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1790 =item gethostent not implemented
1792 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1793 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1796 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1798 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1799 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1801 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1803 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1804 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1806 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1808 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1809 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1810 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1812 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1814 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
1815 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
1816 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1817 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1819 =item glob failed (%s)
1821 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1822 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1823 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1824 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1825 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1826 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1827 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1828 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1829 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1830 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1831 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1833 =item Glob not terminated
1835 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1836 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1837 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1838 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1840 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1842 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1843 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1845 =item goto must have label
1847 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1848 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1850 =item ()-group starts with a count
1852 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
1853 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1854 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1856 =item %s had compilation errors
1858 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1860 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1862 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1863 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1864 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1866 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1868 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1869 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1871 =item %s has too many errors
1873 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1874 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1876 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1878 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1879 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1880 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1882 =item Identifier too long
1884 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1885 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1886 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1887 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1889 =item Ignoring %s in character class in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1891 (W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return multi-char
1892 or zero length sequences. When such an escape is used in a character class
1893 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
1894 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
1896 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1898 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1900 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1902 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1903 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1906 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1908 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1909 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1910 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1911 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1912 to your Perl administrator.
1914 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1916 (W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
1917 characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1919 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1921 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1922 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1924 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
1926 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
1928 =item Illegal division by zero
1930 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1931 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1934 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1936 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1937 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1938 number stopped before the illegal character.
1940 =item Illegal modulus zero
1942 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1943 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1945 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1947 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1948 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1950 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1952 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1954 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1956 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1957 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1959 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1961 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1962 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtwA]>.
1964 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1966 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1967 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1968 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1970 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1972 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1973 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1974 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1977 =item (in cleanup) %s
1979 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1980 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1981 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1982 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1983 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1985 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1986 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1988 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
1990 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
1991 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
1992 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
1994 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
1996 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
1997 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
1998 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2000 =item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2002 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2003 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2004 either consume text or fail.
2006 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2009 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2011 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2012 of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2013 C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2014 as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2016 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2018 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2019 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2020 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2021 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2022 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2023 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2024 L<perlsec> for more information.
2026 =item Insecure directory in %s
2028 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2029 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2030 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2033 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2035 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2036 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2037 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2038 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2039 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2041 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2043 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2044 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2045 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2046 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2047 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2048 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2049 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2050 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2053 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2055 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2056 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2057 integers for your architecture.
2059 =item Integer overflow in version
2061 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2062 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2063 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2064 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2065 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2068 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2070 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2071 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2074 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2076 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2077 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2078 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2079 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2080 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2081 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2083 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2085 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2086 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2089 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2091 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2092 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2093 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2094 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2096 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2098 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2099 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2101 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2103 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2104 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2106 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2108 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2109 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2111 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2113 (W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2114 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2115 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2116 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2117 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2118 escape was discovered.
2120 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2122 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2123 or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2124 (Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2126 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2128 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2129 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2130 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2131 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2132 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2134 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2136 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2137 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2139 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2141 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2142 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2143 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2146 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2148 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2149 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2150 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2151 list was terminated too soon.
2153 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2155 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2156 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2157 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2160 =item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
2162 (F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
2163 that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
2166 =item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
2168 (F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
2169 See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
2171 =item ioctl is not implemented
2173 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2174 strange for a machine that supports C.
2176 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2178 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2179 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2181 =item IO layers (like "%s") unavailable
2183 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2184 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2187 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2189 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2190 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2192 =item $* is no longer supported
2194 (S deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
2195 been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2196 C<//m> and C<//s> regexp modifiers instead.
2198 =item $# is no longer supported
2200 (S deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
2201 been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2202 printf/sprintf functions instead.
2204 =item `%s' is not a code reference
2206 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2207 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
2210 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2212 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2215 =item junk on end of regexp
2217 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2219 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2221 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2222 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2225 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2227 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2228 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2231 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2233 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2234 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2237 =item leaving effective %s failed
2239 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2240 effective uids or gids failed.
2242 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2244 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2245 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2246 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2248 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2250 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2251 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2254 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2256 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2257 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2259 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
2261 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2262 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2263 instead on the filehandle.)
2265 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2267 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2268 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2269 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2271 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2273 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2274 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2276 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2278 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2279 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2281 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2283 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2290 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2291 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2292 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2293 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2295 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2297 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2298 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2299 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2300 when the function is called.
2302 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2304 (S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2305 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2307 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2308 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2309 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2311 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2312 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2313 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2316 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2318 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2320 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2321 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2323 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2325 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2326 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2328 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2330 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2331 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2333 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2335 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2336 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2338 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%s) exceeded
2340 (F) Perl aborted due to a too important number of signals pending. This
2341 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2342 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2343 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2344 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2346 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2348 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2349 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2350 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2353 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2355 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2356 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2359 =item % may not be used in pack
2361 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2362 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2363 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2365 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2367 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2368 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2370 =item Method %s not permitted
2374 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2376 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2377 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2378 ended earlier on the current line.
2380 =item Misplaced _ in number
2382 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2383 separate two digits.
2385 =item Missing argument to -%c
2387 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2388 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2390 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
2392 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2393 double-quotish context.
2395 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2397 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2398 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2400 =item Missing command in piped open
2402 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2403 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2406 =item Missing control char name in \c
2408 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2411 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2413 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2414 they have a name with which they can be found.
2416 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2418 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2419 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2420 can vary from one line to the next.
2422 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2424 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2425 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2427 =item Missing right brace on %s
2429 (F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
2431 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2433 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2434 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2437 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2439 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2440 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2441 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2443 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2445 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2446 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2447 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2449 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2452 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2454 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2455 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2458 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2459 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2462 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2464 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2465 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2468 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2470 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2471 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2473 =item Module name must be constant
2475 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2477 =item Module name required with -%c option
2479 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2480 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2481 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2483 =item More than one argument to open
2485 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2486 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2487 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2488 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2490 =item msg%s not implemented
2492 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2494 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2496 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2497 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2499 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2501 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2502 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2503 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2505 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2507 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2510 =item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
2512 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2513 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2514 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2516 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2518 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2519 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2520 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2521 provided for this purpose.
2523 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2524 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2525 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2526 will not trigger this warning.
2528 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2530 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2531 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2533 =item Negative length
2535 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2536 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2538 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2540 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2541 greater than or equal to zero.
2543 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2545 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2546 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2547 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2549 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2550 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2552 =item %s never introduced
2554 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2555 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2557 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2559 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2560 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2563 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2565 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2566 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2567 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2568 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2570 =item No comma allowed after %s
2572 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2573 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2574 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2576 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2577 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2578 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2579 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2580 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2581 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2582 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2583 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2584 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2585 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2586 this error was triggered?
2588 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2590 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2591 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2592 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2594 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2596 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2597 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2598 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2601 =item No dbm on this machine
2603 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2604 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2606 =item No DB::sub routine defined
2608 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2609 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2610 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2611 of each ordinary subroutine call.
2613 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2615 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2617 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2619 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2620 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2621 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2623 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2625 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2626 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2628 =item No input file after < on command line
2630 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2631 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2632 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2636 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2637 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2639 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2641 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2642 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2643 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2644 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2646 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2648 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2649 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2651 =item No output file after > on command line
2653 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2654 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2655 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2657 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2659 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2660 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2661 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2663 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2665 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2666 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2667 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2669 =item No Perl script found in input
2671 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2672 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2674 =item No setregid available
2676 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2679 =item No setreuid available
2681 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2684 =item No %s specified for -%c
2686 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2687 you haven't specified one.
2689 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2691 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2692 but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2693 package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2695 =item No such class %s
2697 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2698 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2700 =item No such pipe open
2702 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2703 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2704 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2706 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2708 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2709 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2710 names on your system.
2712 =item Not a CODE reference
2714 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2715 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2716 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2719 =item Not a format reference
2721 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2722 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2724 =item Not a GLOB reference
2726 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2727 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2728 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2729 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2731 =item Not a HASH reference
2733 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2734 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2735 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2737 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2739 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2740 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2741 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2743 =item Not a perl script
2745 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2746 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2749 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2751 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2752 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2753 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2755 =item Not a subroutine reference
2757 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2758 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2759 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2762 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2764 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2765 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2767 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2769 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2771 =item Not enough format arguments
2773 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2774 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2778 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2779 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2782 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2784 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2785 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2786 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2787 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2788 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2790 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
2792 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
2793 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
2794 select. See L<perlfunc/select>
2796 =item Null filename used
2798 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2799 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2801 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2803 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2806 =item Null picture in formline
2808 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2809 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2810 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2814 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2816 =item NULL regexp argument
2818 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2820 =item NULL regexp parameter
2822 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2824 =item Number too long
2826 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2827 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2828 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2829 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2832 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2834 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2835 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2838 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2840 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2841 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2842 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2844 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2846 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2848 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2849 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
2851 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2853 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2854 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2856 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2858 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2859 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2861 =item Offset outside string
2863 (F, W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
2864 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
2865 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
2866 take place when going past the end of the string when either
2867 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
2868 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
2871 =item %s() on unopened %s
2873 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2874 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2875 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2877 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2879 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2880 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2884 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2888 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2890 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
2892 (W io deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
2893 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
2894 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
2897 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
2899 (W io deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
2900 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
2901 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
2904 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
2906 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2907 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2908 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2909 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2911 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2913 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2914 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2915 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2916 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2919 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2921 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2922 in the current lexical scope.
2924 =item Out of memory!
2926 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2927 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2928 no option but to exit immediately.
2930 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
2931 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
2932 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
2933 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
2934 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
2936 =item Out of memory during %s extend
2938 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
2939 the largest possible memory allocation.
2941 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2943 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2944 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2945 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2946 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2948 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2950 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2951 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2954 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2955 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2956 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2957 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2958 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2959 where the failed request happened.
2961 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2963 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2964 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2965 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2967 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2969 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2970 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2973 =item '.' outside of string in pack
2975 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
2976 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
2978 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
2980 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2981 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2983 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
2985 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2986 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
2987 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2989 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2991 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2992 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2993 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2994 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2996 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
2998 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2999 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3003 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3004 page. See L<perlform>.
3008 (P) An internal error.
3010 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3012 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3013 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3014 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3015 enter this branch on this platform.
3017 =item panic: ck_grep
3019 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3021 =item panic: ck_split
3023 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3025 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3027 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3028 there are in the savestack.
3030 =item panic: del_backref
3032 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3035 =item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3037 (P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3038 last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3039 an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3040 a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3044 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3045 it wasn't an eval context.
3047 =item panic: do_subst
3049 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3052 =item panic: do_trans_%s
3054 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
3057 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3059 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
3064 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3068 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3069 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3071 =item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3073 (P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
3074 but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3075 contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3076 adds a new object to the hash.
3078 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3080 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3082 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3084 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3086 =item panic: kid popen errno read
3088 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3092 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3093 it wasn't a block context.
3095 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3097 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3100 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3102 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3103 invalid enum on the top of it.
3105 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3107 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3108 references to an object.
3112 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3114 =item panic: memory wrap
3116 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3118 =item panic: pad_alloc
3120 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3121 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3123 =item panic: pad_free curpad
3125 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3126 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3128 =item panic: pad_free po
3130 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3132 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
3134 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3135 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3137 =item panic: pad_sv po
3139 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3141 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3143 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3144 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3146 =item panic: pad_swipe po
3148 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3150 =item panic: pp_iter
3152 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3154 =item panic: pp_match%s
3156 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3159 =item panic: pp_split
3161 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3163 =item panic: realloc
3165 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3167 =item panic: restartop
3169 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3170 didn't supply the destination.
3174 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3175 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3177 =item panic: scan_num
3179 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3181 =item panic: sv_insert
3183 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3186 =item panic: top_env
3188 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
3190 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3192 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3195 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3197 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3198 to even) byte length.
3202 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3204 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3206 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3207 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3208 nesting limit is exceeded.
3210 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3213 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3215 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3221 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3223 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
3225 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3227 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3228 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3229 redirected it with select().)
3231 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3233 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3234 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3235 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3237 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3239 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3240 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3241 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3242 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3244 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3246 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3247 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3248 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3250 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3252 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3253 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3255 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3257 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3259 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3261 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3263 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3264 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3267 are supported and installed on your system.
3268 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3270 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3271 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3272 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3273 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3274 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3275 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3276 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3277 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3278 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3279 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3281 =item Permission denied
3283 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
3285 =item pid %x not a child
3287 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3288 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3289 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3291 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3293 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3295 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
3297 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
3298 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
3300 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3302 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3303 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3304 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3305 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3306 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3308 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3310 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3311 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3313 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3315 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3316 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3317 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3318 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3319 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3320 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3322 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3324 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3325 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3326 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3327 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3328 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3329 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3331 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3333 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3334 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3335 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3336 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3337 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3338 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3340 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3342 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3343 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3344 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3345 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3347 You probably wrote something like this:
3354 when you should have written this:
3361 If you really want comments, build your list the
3362 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3366 'b', # another comment
3369 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3371 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3372 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3373 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3376 You probably wrote something like this:
3380 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3381 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3385 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3387 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3388 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3389 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3390 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3392 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3394 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3395 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3397 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3399 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3400 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3401 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3402 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3404 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3406 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3407 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3408 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3409 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3411 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
3413 (D deprecated) You have written something like this:
3417 use attrs qw(locked);
3420 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
3426 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
3427 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
3429 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3431 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3435 is now misinterpreted as
3439 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3440 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3441 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3444 =item Premature end of script headers
3448 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3450 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3451 before now. Check your control flow.
3453 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3455 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3456 before now. Check your control flow.
3458 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3460 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3461 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3462 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3463 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3466 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3468 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3469 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3471 =item Prototype not terminated
3473 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3476 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3478 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3479 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3480 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3482 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3484 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3485 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3486 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3488 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3490 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3491 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3492 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3493 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3494 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3496 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3499 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3501 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3502 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3503 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3504 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3506 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3508 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3509 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3511 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3513 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3514 before now. Check your control flow.
3516 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3518 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3520 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3522 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3524 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
3526 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3528 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3530 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3533 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3535 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3536 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3537 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3539 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3541 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3542 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3543 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
3545 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3547 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3548 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3551 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3553 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3554 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3555 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3556 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3558 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3559 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3560 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3561 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3563 =item Reference is already weak
3565 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3566 Doing so has no effect.
3568 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3570 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3571 a reference count of other than 1.
3573 =item Reference to invalid group 0
3575 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
3576 capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
3577 backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
3578 backreferences), but using 0 does not make sense.
3580 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3582 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3583 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3584 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3585 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
3587 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3590 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3592 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
3593 not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
3594 where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
3596 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3599 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3601 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3602 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3603 as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3604 correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3606 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3609 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3611 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3612 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3613 of the C<....> part.
3615 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3618 =item regexp memory corruption
3620 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3621 expression compiler gave it.
3623 =item Regexp out of space
3625 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3628 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3630 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
3631 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3632 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3634 =item Reversed %s= operator
3636 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3637 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3639 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3641 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
3642 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3644 =item Runaway format
3646 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3647 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3648 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3649 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3650 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3652 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3654 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3655 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3656 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3657 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3659 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3661 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3662 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3663 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3664 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3665 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3666 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3667 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3669 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3670 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3671 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3674 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3676 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3677 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3678 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3679 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3680 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3681 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3682 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3684 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3685 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3686 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3689 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3691 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3692 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
3694 =item Search pattern not terminated
3696 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3697 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3698 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3700 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
3701 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3702 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3703 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3705 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
3707 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
3710 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
3711 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
3712 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
3713 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
3715 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3717 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3718 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3720 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3722 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
3723 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3725 =item select not implemented
3727 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3729 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3731 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3732 the current implementation.
3734 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3736 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3737 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3739 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3741 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3742 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3744 =item sem%s not implemented
3746 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3748 =item send() on closed socket %s
3750 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3751 before now. Check your control flow.
3753 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3755 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3756 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3759 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3761 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3762 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3763 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3765 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3767 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3768 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3769 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3771 =item Sequence \\%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3773 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
3774 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
3776 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3778 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3779 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3780 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3783 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3785 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3786 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3787 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3790 =item 500 Server error
3796 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3797 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3798 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3799 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3800 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3801 produce a valid header".
3803 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3805 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3806 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3807 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3808 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3809 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3810 Please see the following for more information:
3812 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3813 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3814 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
3816 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3818 =item setegid() not implemented
3820 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3821 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3824 =item seteuid() not implemented
3826 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3827 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3830 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3832 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3833 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3836 =item setrgid() not implemented
3838 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3839 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3842 =item setruid() not implemented
3844 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3845 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3848 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3850 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3851 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3852 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3854 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3856 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3857 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3859 =item Setuid script not plain file
3861 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
3862 but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
3864 =item shm%s not implemented
3866 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3868 =item !=~ should be !~
3870 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
3871 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
3872 operators: probably not what you intended.
3874 =item <> should be quotes
3876 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3879 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3881 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3882 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3883 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3884 probably not what you had in mind.
3886 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3888 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3891 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3893 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3894 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3896 =item sort is now a reserved word
3898 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3899 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3901 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3903 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3904 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3905 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3907 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3909 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3910 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3912 =item splice() offset past end of array
3914 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
3915 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
3916 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
3917 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
3922 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3923 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3924 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3926 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3928 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3929 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3930 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3931 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3934 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3936 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3937 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3939 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s"
3941 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3942 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3943 C<can> may break this.
3945 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3947 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3950 no warnings 'redefine';
3951 eval "sub name { ... }";
3954 =item Substitution loop
3956 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3957 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3958 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3959 L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
3961 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3963 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3964 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3965 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3967 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3969 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3970 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3971 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3973 =item substr outside of string
3975 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3976 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3977 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3978 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3979 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3981 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3983 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3984 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3986 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
3988 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
3989 inferior to its current type.
3991 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3993 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3994 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3995 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3996 clustering parentheses:
3998 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4000 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4001 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4003 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4005 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
4006 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4007 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4009 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
4011 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4012 and effective uids or gids.
4016 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4020 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4022 A keyword is misspelled.
4023 A semicolon is missing.
4025 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4026 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4027 A closing quote is missing.
4029 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4030 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4031 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4032 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
4033 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
4034 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4035 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4036 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
4037 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
4040 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4042 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4043 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4046 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4048 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4049 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4050 or "my $var" or "our $var".
4052 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4054 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4056 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4058 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4060 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
4062 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4063 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4064 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4065 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
4067 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
4069 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4070 before now. Check your control flow.
4072 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4074 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4075 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4077 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4079 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4080 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
4082 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
4084 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4085 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4087 =item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4089 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4090 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4092 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
4094 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4095 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4104 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4105 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
4107 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
4109 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4110 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
4111 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
4112 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4115 =item The %s function is unimplemented
4117 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4118 to the probings of Configure.
4120 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
4122 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4123 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4124 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4127 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4129 (F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
4131 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
4133 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4135 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
4136 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4137 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4138 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4139 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4140 target of the change to
4141 %ENV which produced the warning.
4143 =item thread failed to start: %s
4145 (W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
4147 =item times not implemented
4149 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4150 suspect you're not running on Unix.
4152 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4154 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4155 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
4156 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4157 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4160 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4161 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
4162 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
4163 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
4165 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4166 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
4168 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4170 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4171 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4172 specified an illegal mapping.
4173 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4175 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4177 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
4179 =item Too few args to syscall
4181 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4182 system call to call, silly dilly.
4184 =item Too late for "-%s" option
4186 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4187 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option. This is an error because those options
4188 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4190 =item Too late to run %s block
4192 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4193 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
4194 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4195 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4198 =item Too many args to syscall
4200 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
4202 =item Too many arguments for %s
4204 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4208 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4209 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4213 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4214 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4216 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
4218 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4219 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
4221 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
4223 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
4224 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4225 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
4227 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
4229 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4230 y/// or y[][] construct.
4232 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4234 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4235 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4237 =item truncate not implemented
4239 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4240 Configure knows about.
4242 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4244 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
4245 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4246 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
4247 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4249 =item umask not implemented
4251 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4252 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
4254 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4256 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4258 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4260 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4261 many execution contexts were entered and left.
4263 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4265 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4266 many values were temporarily localized.
4268 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4270 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4271 many blocks were entered and left.
4273 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4275 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4276 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
4278 =item Undefined format "%s" called
4280 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4281 another package? See L<perlform>.
4283 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4285 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4286 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4288 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4290 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4291 since been undefined.
4293 =item Undefined subroutine called
4295 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4296 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4298 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
4300 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4301 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4303 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
4305 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4306 another package? See L<perlform>.
4308 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4310 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4311 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4314 =item %s: Undefined variable
4316 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4317 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4319 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4321 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4322 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4324 =item Unicode character %s is illegal
4326 (W utf8) Certain Unicode characters have been designated off-limits by
4327 the Unicode standard and should not be generated. If you really know
4328 what you are doing you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4330 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
4332 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4335 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4337 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
4338 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
4339 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
4341 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4343 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4344 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4345 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4346 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4347 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4348 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4350 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4352 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4353 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4354 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4355 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
4357 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4359 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4361 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4363 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4364 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4365 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4366 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4367 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4370 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4371 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4373 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4375 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4376 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4378 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4380 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4381 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4383 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4385 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4386 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4388 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4389 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
4391 =item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4393 (F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4394 after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4395 L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4399 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4401 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
4402 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
4403 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4404 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4406 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4408 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
4409 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4410 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4411 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4413 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
4415 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4416 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4417 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4418 you were last editing.
4420 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4422 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4423 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4424 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4427 =item Unrecognized character %s in column %d
4429 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
4430 in your Perl script (or eval) at the specified column. Perhaps you tried
4431 to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
4433 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4435 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4436 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4437 understood literally.
4438 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4439 escape was discovered.
4441 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
4443 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4444 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally.
4446 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4448 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4449 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally.
4450 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4451 escape was discovered.
4453 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4455 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4456 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4459 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
4461 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4462 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4463 bad switch on your behalf.)
4465 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4467 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4468 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
4469 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
4471 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4473 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4475 =item Unsupported function %s
4477 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4478 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4480 =item Unsupported function fork
4482 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4484 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4485 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4486 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
4488 =item Unsupported script encoding %s
4490 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
4491 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
4493 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4495 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4496 least that's what Configure thought.
4498 =item Unterminated attribute list
4500 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4501 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4502 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4503 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
4505 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4507 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4508 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
4509 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4510 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4512 =item Unterminated compressed integer
4514 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4515 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4516 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4518 =item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4520 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
4521 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4523 =item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4525 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
4526 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4528 =item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4530 (F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
4531 a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
4533 =item Unterminated <> operator
4535 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
4536 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4537 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4538 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
4540 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
4542 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4543 still valid when C<untie> was called.
4545 =item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4547 (F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4548 See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4550 =item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4552 (F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4553 See L<Win32> for more information.
4555 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4557 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4558 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
4560 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
4564 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
4566 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4567 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4569 =item Useless localization of %s
4571 (W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4572 legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4573 some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4575 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4577 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4578 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
4580 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
4584 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
4586 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4587 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4589 =item Useless use of %s in void context
4591 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
4592 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4593 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4594 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4595 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4596 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4601 when you meant to say
4603 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4605 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4606 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4611 when you should have said
4615 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4616 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4617 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4618 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4619 L<perlref> for more on this.
4621 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4622 since they are often used in statements like
4624 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
4626 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4629 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
4631 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4633 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4635 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4639 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4641 =item Useless use of %s with no values
4643 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
4644 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4645 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4646 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4647 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4648 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4650 =item "use" not allowed in expression
4652 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4653 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4655 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4657 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
4658 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4660 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4662 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4663 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4664 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4667 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4668 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4670 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4672 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4673 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4675 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4677 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4678 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4679 used. (This may change in the future.)
4681 =item Use of freed value in iteration
4683 (F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
4684 This error is typically caused by code like the following:
4687 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
4689 You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
4690 For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
4691 reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
4692 middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
4694 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4696 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4697 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4699 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
4701 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4702 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4703 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
4705 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
4707 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
4708 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
4709 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
4711 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4713 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4714 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4715 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4716 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4719 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4720 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4721 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4722 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4725 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
4726 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4727 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4728 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4731 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4732 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
4733 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
4735 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4737 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4738 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4740 =item Use of %s is deprecated
4742 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
4743 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4744 old way has bad side effects.
4746 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4748 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4749 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4750 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4752 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4754 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4755 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4756 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4759 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
4761 (W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
4762 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4763 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
4765 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
4766 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4767 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
4768 operators and then you assumably know what you are doing.
4770 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4772 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4773 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4774 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4775 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4776 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4777 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
4779 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
4781 (W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
4782 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
4783 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
4784 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
4786 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
4788 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
4789 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
4790 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
4792 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
4793 name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
4794 do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
4795 in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
4796 displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
4797 program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
4798 . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
4799 even though there is no C<.> in your program.
4801 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
4803 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
4804 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
4805 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
4806 be removed in a future version.
4808 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
4810 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
4811 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
4812 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
4813 removed in a future version.
4815 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
4817 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of an UTF-16 surrogate by
4818 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
4819 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
4820 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
4821 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
4822 character. If you really know what you are doing you can turn off
4823 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4825 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
4827 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
4828 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
4829 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
4830 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
4831 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
4832 C<defined> operator.
4834 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
4836 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
4837 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
4838 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
4841 =item Variable "%s" is not available
4843 (W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
4844 attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
4845 This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
4846 declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
4847 (Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
4848 subs are created at run-time.) For example,
4850 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
4852 At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
4853 since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
4854 the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
4855 now been created and is live:
4857 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
4859 The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
4860 gone out of scope, for example,
4868 Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
4869 executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
4871 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
4873 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
4874 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
4875 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
4876 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
4877 front of your variable.
4879 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
4881 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
4882 known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
4884 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
4886 (W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the current
4887 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
4888 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
4889 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
4890 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
4892 =item Variable syntax
4894 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4895 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4898 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4900 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
4901 lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
4903 When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
4904 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4905 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4906 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4907 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4908 variable will no longer be shared.
4910 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4911 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
4912 reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
4913 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
4915 =item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4917 (F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an argument
4918 or check that you are using the right verb.
4920 =item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4922 (F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
4923 argument or check that you are using the right verb.
4925 =item Version number must be a constant number
4927 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4928 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4931 =item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
4933 (W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
4936 =item v-string in use/require is non-portable
4938 (W portable) The use of v-strings is non-portable to older, pre-5.6, Perls.
4939 If you want your scripts to be backward portable, use the floating
4940 point version number: for example, instead of C<use 5.6.1> say
4941 C<use 5.006_001>. This of course won't help: the older Perls
4942 won't suddenly start understanding newer features, but at least
4943 they will show a sensible error message indicating the required
4946 This warning is suppressed if the C<use 5.x.y> is preceded by a
4947 C<use 5.006> (see C<use VERSION> in L<perlfunc/use>).
4949 =item Warning: something's wrong
4951 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
4952 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
4954 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
4956 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4957 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4960 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
4962 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4963 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4964 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4965 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
4969 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4973 but in actual fact, you got
4977 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
4979 =item Wide character in %s
4981 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
4982 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
4983 way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
4984 output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
4985 warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
4986 cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
4987 filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4989 =item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
4991 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
4992 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
4993 determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
4994 of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
4996 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
4998 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4999 before now. Check your control flow.
5001 =item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
5003 When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
5004 into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5005 this encoding, for example
5007 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5009 if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5011 =item 'X' outside of string
5013 (F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5014 the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5016 =item 'x' outside of string in unpack
5018 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5019 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5021 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5023 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
5024 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
5025 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
5028 =item You need to quote "%s"
5030 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5031 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5032 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5033 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5034 what you want, put an & in front.)
5036 =item Your random numbers are not that random
5038 (F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5039 not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5040 Something Very Wrong.
5046 L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>.