3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
22 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
23 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
24 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
27 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
28 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
29 Since the messages are listed in alphabetical order, the symbols
30 C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
34 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
36 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try that
39 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
41 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
42 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
43 if you want to localize a package variable.
45 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
47 (W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
48 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
49 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
50 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
53 =item "no" not allowed in expression
55 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
56 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
58 =item "use" not allowed in expression
60 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
61 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
63 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
65 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
68 =item # cannot take a count
70 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
71 but you have also specified an explicit size for the string.
74 =item # must be followed by a, A or Z
76 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
77 which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z
78 to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked.
81 =item # must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
83 (F) You had an pack template indicating a counted-length string,
84 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*.
87 =item # must follow a numeric type
89 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#',
90 but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.
93 =item % may only be used in unpack
95 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
96 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
97 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
99 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
101 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
102 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
104 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
106 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
107 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
109 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
111 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
112 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
113 C<'>-delimited regular expression.
115 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
117 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
118 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
119 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
121 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
123 (W) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a
124 definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call
125 conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype
126 declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine
127 definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively,
128 if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put
129 an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L<perlsub>.
131 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
133 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
136 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
138 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
140 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
143 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
145 or a hash slice, such as
147 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
148 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
150 =item %s did not return a true value
152 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
153 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
154 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
155 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
157 =item %s found where operator expected
159 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
160 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
161 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
162 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
164 =item %s had compilation errors
166 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
168 =item %s has too many errors
170 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
171 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
173 =item %s matches null string many times
175 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
176 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
178 =item %s never introduced
180 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
181 before it could possibly have been used.
183 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
185 (W) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a package-specific handler.
186 That name might have a meaning to Perl itself some day, even though it
187 doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a mixed-case attribute name, instead.
192 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
194 =item %s: Command not found
196 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
197 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
200 =item %s: Expression syntax
202 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
203 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
206 =item %s: Undefined variable
208 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
209 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
214 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
215 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
218 =item (in cleanup) %s
220 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
221 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
222 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
223 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
224 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
227 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
228 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
230 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
232 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
233 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
234 the previous line just because you saw this message.
236 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
238 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
239 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
241 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
243 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
244 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
246 =item C<-p> destination: %s
248 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
249 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
250 redirected it with select().)
252 =item 500 Server error
256 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
258 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
259 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
261 =item @ outside of string
263 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
264 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
266 =item <> should be quotes
268 (F) You wrote C<require E<lt>fileE<gt>> when you should have written
271 =item accept() on closed fd
273 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
274 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
276 =item Allocation too large: %lx
278 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
280 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
282 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
283 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
284 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
285 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
286 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
287 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
289 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
291 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
293 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
295 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
296 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
297 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
299 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
301 (W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
302 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
303 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
306 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
307 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
308 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
309 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
311 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
312 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
313 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">
316 =item Args must match #! line
318 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
319 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
320 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
321 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
323 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
325 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
326 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
327 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
329 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
331 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
332 is now heavily deprecated.
334 =item assertion botched: %s
336 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
338 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
340 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
342 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
344 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
345 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
346 know which context to supply to the right side.
348 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
350 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
351 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
354 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
356 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
357 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
358 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
359 that can no longer be found in the table.
361 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
363 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
364 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
365 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
366 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
369 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
371 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
373 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
375 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
376 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
377 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
378 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
379 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
380 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
382 =item Attempt to join self
384 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
385 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
386 need to move the join() to some other thread.
388 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
390 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
391 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
392 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
393 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
394 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
397 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
399 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
400 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
401 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
403 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
405 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
406 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
407 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
408 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
410 =item Bad filehandle: %s
412 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
413 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
414 did it in another package.
416 =item Bad free() ignored
418 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
419 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
420 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
422 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
423 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
424 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
429 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
431 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
433 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
434 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
437 =item Bad name after %s::
439 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
440 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
449 $sym = "mypack::$var";
451 =item Bad symbol for array
453 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
454 wasn't a symbol table entry.
456 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
458 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
459 wasn't a symbol table entry.
461 =item Bad symbol for hash
463 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
464 wasn't a symbol table entry.
466 =item Badly placed ()'s
468 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
469 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
472 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
474 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
475 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
476 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
478 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
480 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
481 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
482 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
484 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
486 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
487 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
489 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
491 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
492 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
493 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
494 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
495 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
497 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
499 (W) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
500 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
501 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
503 =item bind() on closed fd
505 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
506 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
508 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
510 (W) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
512 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
514 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
516 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
518 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
519 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
520 so it was truncated to the string shown.
522 =item Callback called exit
524 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
525 exited by calling exit.
527 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
529 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
530 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
531 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
532 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
534 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
536 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
537 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
539 =item Can't "last" outside a block
541 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
542 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
543 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
544 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
545 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
546 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
548 =item Can't "next" outside a block
550 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
551 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
552 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
553 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
554 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
556 =item Can't read CRTL environ
558 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
559 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
560 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
561 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
563 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
565 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
566 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
567 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
568 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
569 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
571 =item Can't bless non-reference value
573 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
574 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
576 =item Can't break at that line
578 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
579 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
582 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
584 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
585 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
586 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
588 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
590 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
591 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
592 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
593 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
595 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
597 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
598 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
599 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
600 Something like this will reproduce the error:
603 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
604 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
606 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
608 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
609 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
610 Something like this will reproduce the error:
613 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
614 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
616 =item Can't chdir to %s
618 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
619 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
621 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s"
623 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
625 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
627 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
628 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
638 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
640 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
642 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
643 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
645 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
647 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
648 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
650 =item Can't coerce array into hash
652 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
653 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
654 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
656 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
658 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
659 or other plumbing problems.
661 =item Can't declare %s in my
663 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
664 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
666 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
668 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
670 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
672 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
673 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
676 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
678 (S) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
679 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
680 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
682 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
684 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
685 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
687 =item Can't do setegid!
689 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
692 =item Can't do seteuid!
694 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
696 =item Can't do setuid
698 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
699 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
700 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
701 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
702 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
703 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
705 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
707 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
708 without flags is emulated.
710 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
712 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
713 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
715 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
717 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
718 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
720 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
722 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
723 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
724 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
725 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
726 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
727 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
731 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
732 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
733 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
735 =item Can't execute %s
737 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
738 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
740 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
742 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
743 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
744 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
746 =item Can't find %s on PATH
748 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
751 =item Can't find label %s
753 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
754 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
756 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
758 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
759 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
760 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
762 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
764 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
765 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
766 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
770 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
772 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
774 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
775 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
776 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
777 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
778 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
779 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
780 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
781 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
782 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
783 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
784 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
785 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
786 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
787 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
789 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
791 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
792 can't retrieve its name for later use.
794 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
796 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
797 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
799 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
801 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
802 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
803 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
806 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
808 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
809 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
811 =item Can't localize through a reference
813 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
814 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
815 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
816 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
818 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
820 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
821 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
822 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
825 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
827 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
828 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
829 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
830 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
832 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
834 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
835 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
836 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
837 doing C<make install>.
839 =item Can't locate %s
841 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
842 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
843 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
844 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra
845 library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or
846 maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>
849 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
851 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
852 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
853 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
855 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
857 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
860 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
862 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
864 =item Can't modify %s in %s
866 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
867 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
869 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
871 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
874 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
876 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
879 =item Can't open %s: %s
881 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
882 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
883 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
884 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
887 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
889 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
890 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
891 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
892 and then read it in under a different file handle.
894 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
896 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
897 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
898 command line for writing.
900 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
902 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
903 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
905 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
907 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
908 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
911 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
913 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
914 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
916 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
918 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
920 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
922 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
923 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
924 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
925 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
927 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
929 (S) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup file. Perl
930 was unable to remove the original file to replace it with the modified
931 file. The file was left unmodified.
933 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
935 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
936 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
938 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
940 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
941 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
943 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
945 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
948 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
950 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
951 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
953 =item Can't stat script "%s"
955 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
956 it open already. Bizarre.
958 =item Can't swap uid and euid
960 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
963 =item Can't take log of %g
965 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
966 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
967 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
968 the negative numbers.
970 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
972 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
973 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
974 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
976 =item Can't undef active subroutine
978 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
979 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
980 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
984 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
985 as the main Perl stack.
987 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
989 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
990 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
991 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
992 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
994 =item Can't upgrade to undef
996 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
997 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
998 code calling sv_upgrade.
1000 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
1002 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1003 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1004 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1006 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1008 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1009 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
1010 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1011 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1014 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
1016 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
1017 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
1018 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
1020 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1022 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
1024 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1026 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1027 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1028 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1030 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
1032 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
1033 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
1034 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
1035 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
1036 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
1038 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
1040 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1041 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1043 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1045 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1046 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1048 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1050 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1051 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1053 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1055 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
1056 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
1057 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
1058 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1061 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1063 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1064 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1065 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1067 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1069 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1070 references can be weakened.
1072 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1074 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
1075 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1076 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1078 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
1080 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
1081 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
1083 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1085 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1086 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1087 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1089 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1091 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
1093 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1095 (W) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1096 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
1097 for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that the last two constructs
1098 are not currently implemented, they are placeholders for future extensions.
1100 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1102 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
1103 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
1104 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1105 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1106 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1108 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1110 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1111 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
1112 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1113 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1114 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1116 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
1118 (W) A novice will sometimes say
1120 chmod 777, $filename
1122 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1123 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1125 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1127 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1129 =item Compilation failed in require
1131 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1132 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1133 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1135 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1137 (W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1138 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1139 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1140 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1141 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1142 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1143 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1144 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1145 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1147 =item connect() on closed fd
1149 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1150 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1152 =item Constant is not %s reference
1154 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1155 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1156 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1157 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1158 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1160 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1162 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1163 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1166 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1168 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1169 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1172 =item constant(%s): %%^H is not localized
1174 (F) When setting compile-time-lexicalized hash %^H one should set the
1175 corresponding bit of $^H as well.
1177 =item constant(%s): %s
1179 (F) Compile-time-substitutions (such as overloaded constants and
1180 character names) were not correctly set up.
1182 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1184 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1186 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1188 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1190 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1192 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1193 expression compiler gave it.
1195 =item corrupted regexp program
1197 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1198 a valid magic number.
1200 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1202 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1203 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1204 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1205 case it indicates something else.
1207 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1209 (D) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
1210 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
1211 just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1213 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1215 (D) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
1216 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
1217 just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1219 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1221 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1222 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1223 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1225 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1227 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1229 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1231 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1232 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1236 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1237 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1239 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1241 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1242 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1243 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1244 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1245 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1246 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1247 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1248 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1251 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1253 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1255 =item do_study: out of memory
1257 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1259 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1261 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1264 =item elseif should be elsif
1266 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1267 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1268 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1269 unlikely to be what you want.
1271 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
1273 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1274 The interpreter is immediately exited.
1276 =item entering effective %s failed
1278 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1279 effective uids or gids failed.
1281 =item Error converting file specification %s
1283 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1284 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1285 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1286 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1287 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1289 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1291 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1292 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1293 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1295 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1297 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1298 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1299 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1301 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1303 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1304 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1305 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1306 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1307 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1308 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1310 =item Excessively long <> operator
1312 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1313 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1314 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1315 variable and glob that.
1317 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1319 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1321 =item Exiting eval via %s
1323 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1324 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1326 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1328 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1329 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1330 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1332 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1334 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1335 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1337 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1339 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1340 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1342 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1344 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1345 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1346 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1347 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1349 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1351 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1352 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1353 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1354 the Perl source code is distressed.
1356 =item fcntl is not implemented
1358 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1359 PDP-11 or something?
1361 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1363 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1364 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1365 the FileHandle package.
1367 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1369 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1370 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1371 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1372 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1375 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1377 (W) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
1378 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1379 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1380 you intended only to read from the file, use "E<lt>". See
1383 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1385 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1386 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1387 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1390 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1392 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1393 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1394 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1397 =item Format %s redefined
1399 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1403 eval "format NAME =...";
1406 =item Format not terminated
1408 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1409 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1411 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1421 (or something like that).
1423 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1425 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1427 =item gethostent not implemented
1429 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1430 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1433 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1435 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1436 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1438 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1440 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1441 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1443 =item Glob not terminated
1445 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1446 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1447 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1448 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1450 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1452 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1453 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1454 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1456 =item goto must have label
1458 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1459 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1461 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1463 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1464 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1465 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1467 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1469 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1470 is now heavily deprecated.
1472 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1474 (W) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1475 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1476 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1478 =item Identifier too long
1480 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1481 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1482 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1483 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1485 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1487 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1488 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1489 used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1491 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1493 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1494 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1495 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1498 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1500 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1501 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1502 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1504 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1505 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1506 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1507 properly converting the text file format.
1509 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1510 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1511 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1513 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1514 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1517 =item Illegal division by zero
1519 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1520 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1522 =item Illegal modulus zero
1524 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1525 don't take to this kindly.
1527 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1529 (F) You used a digit other than 0 and 1 in a binary number.
1531 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1533 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1535 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1537 (W) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1538 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1540 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1542 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1543 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1545 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1547 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f
1548 in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1549 before the illegal character.
1551 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1553 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1554 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1556 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1558 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1559 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1561 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1563 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1564 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1565 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1566 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1567 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1568 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1569 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1571 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1573 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1574 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1575 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1576 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1577 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1578 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1579 for more information.
1581 =item Insecure directory in %s
1583 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1584 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1587 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1589 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1590 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1591 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1592 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1593 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1595 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1597 (W) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either
1598 as a literal in your code or as a scalar is too big for your
1599 architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a
1600 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1601 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1602 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1603 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1604 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1607 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1609 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1610 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1611 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1612 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1613 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1614 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1615 and execute the specified command.
1617 =item internal disaster in regexp
1619 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1621 =item glob failed (%s)
1623 (W) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1624 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1625 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1626 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1627 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1628 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1629 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1630 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1631 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1632 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1635 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1637 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1639 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1641 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1642 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1644 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1646 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not recognized
1647 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1649 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1651 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1652 greater than the maximum character, or the range didn't start/end with
1653 a literal character. See L<perlre>.
1655 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1657 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1658 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1660 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1662 (F) Something other than a comma or whitespace was seen between the
1663 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute
1664 had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated
1665 too soon. See L<attributes>.
1667 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1669 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1670 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1673 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1675 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1676 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1679 =item ioctl is not implemented
1681 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1682 strange for a machine that supports C.
1684 =item junk on end of regexp
1686 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1688 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1690 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1691 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1692 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1694 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1696 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1697 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1700 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1702 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1703 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1706 =item leaving effective %s failed
1708 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1709 effective uids or gids failed.
1711 =item listen() on closed fd
1713 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1714 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1716 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1718 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1719 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1721 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1723 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1724 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1725 ended earlier on the current line.
1727 =item Misplaced _ in number
1729 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1731 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1733 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1734 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1735 one line to the next.
1737 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1739 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1740 double-quotish context.
1742 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1744 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1745 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1747 =item Missing command in piped open
1749 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1750 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1752 =item Missing operator before %s?
1754 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1755 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1757 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1759 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than
1760 closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place
1761 you were last editing.
1763 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1765 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1766 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1767 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1769 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1772 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1774 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1776 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1777 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1780 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1782 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1783 be created for some peculiar reason.
1785 =item Module name must be constant
1787 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1789 =item msg%s not implemented
1791 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1793 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1795 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1796 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1798 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1800 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that they
1801 have a name with which they can be found.
1803 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1805 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1806 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1807 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
1808 provided for just this purpose.
1810 =item Negative length
1812 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1813 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1815 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1817 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1818 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1820 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1821 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1825 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1826 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1828 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1830 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1831 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1832 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1835 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1837 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1839 =item No comma allowed after %s
1841 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1842 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1843 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1845 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1846 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1847 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1848 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1849 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1850 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1851 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1852 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1853 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1854 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1855 this error was triggered?
1857 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1859 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1860 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1861 want to pipe the output from this command.
1863 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1865 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1866 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1867 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1868 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1869 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1872 =item No dbm on this machine
1874 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1875 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1877 =item No DBsub routine
1879 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1880 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1881 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1882 ordinary subroutine call.
1884 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1886 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1887 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1888 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1890 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1892 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1893 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1894 from which to read data for stdin.
1896 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1898 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1899 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1900 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1902 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1904 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1905 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1906 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1908 =item No Perl script found in input
1910 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1911 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1913 =item No setregid available
1915 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1918 =item No setreuid available
1920 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1923 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1925 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1928 =item No such array field
1930 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
1931 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
1932 array indices for that to work.
1934 =item No such field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
1936 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
1937 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
1938 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
1939 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
1941 =item No such pipe open
1943 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1944 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1945 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1947 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1949 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1950 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1952 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
1954 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
1955 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
1956 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
1957 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
1960 =item Not a CODE reference
1962 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1963 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1964 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1965 See also L<perlref>.
1967 =item Not a format reference
1969 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1970 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1972 =item Not a GLOB reference
1974 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1975 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1976 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1977 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1979 =item Not a HASH reference
1981 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1982 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1983 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1985 =item Not a perl script
1987 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1988 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1991 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1993 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1994 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1995 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1997 =item Not a subroutine reference
1999 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2000 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2001 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2002 See also L<perlref>.
2004 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2006 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2007 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2009 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2011 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
2012 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2013 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2015 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2017 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2019 =item Not enough format arguments
2021 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
2024 =item Null filename used
2026 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
2027 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2029 =item Null picture in formline
2031 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2032 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2033 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2035 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2037 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
2041 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2043 =item NULL regexp argument
2045 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2047 =item NULL regexp parameter
2049 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2051 =item Number too long
2053 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
2054 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
2055 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
2056 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
2058 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2060 (W) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295)
2061 and therefore non-portable between systems. See L<perlport> for more
2062 on portability concerns.
2064 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2066 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2068 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
2069 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2071 =item Offset outside string
2073 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2074 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
2075 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
2076 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2080 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2084 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2086 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2088 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
2089 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
2090 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
2091 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
2092 true. See L<overload>.
2094 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2096 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
2097 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
2098 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
2099 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
2100 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
2102 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2104 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
2105 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
2107 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2109 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2110 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
2112 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2113 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2114 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
2115 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
2116 error is trappable I<once>.
2118 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2120 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2121 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2122 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
2123 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2125 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2127 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2128 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
2129 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2133 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
2136 =item panic: ck_grep
2138 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2140 =item panic: ck_split
2142 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2144 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2146 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
2147 are in the savestack.
2149 =item panic: del_backref
2151 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2156 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2157 it wasn't an eval context.
2159 =item panic: do_match
2161 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2163 =item panic: do_split
2165 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2167 =item panic: do_subst
2169 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2171 =item panic: do_trans
2173 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2177 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2181 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2182 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2184 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2186 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2188 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2190 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2192 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2194 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2198 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2199 it wasn't a block context.
2201 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2203 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
2205 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2207 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2208 invalid enum on the top of it.
2212 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2214 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2216 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2217 references to an object.
2219 =item panic: mapstart
2221 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2223 =item panic: null array
2225 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2227 =item panic: pad_alloc
2229 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2230 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2232 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2234 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2235 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2237 =item panic: pad_free po
2239 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2241 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2243 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2244 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2246 =item panic: pad_sv po
2248 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2250 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2252 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2253 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2255 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2257 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2259 =item panic: pp_iter
2261 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2263 =item panic: realloc
2265 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2267 =item panic: restartop
2269 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2270 didn't supply the destination.
2274 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2275 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2277 =item panic: scan_num
2279 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2281 =item panic: sv_insert
2283 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2286 =item panic: top_env
2288 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2292 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2294 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2296 (W) You said something like
2302 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2304 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2306 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2308 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2309 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2310 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2312 =item Permission denied
2314 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2316 =item pid %x not a child
2318 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2319 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2320 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2322 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2324 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2325 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2327 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2329 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2330 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2331 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2332 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2334 You probably wrote something like this:
2341 when you should have written this:
2348 If you really want comments, build your list the
2349 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2353 'b', # another comment
2356 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2358 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2359 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2360 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2363 You probably wrote something like this:
2367 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2368 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2372 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2374 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2375 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2376 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2377 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2379 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2381 (S) The old irregular construct
2385 is now misinterpreted as
2389 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2390 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2391 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2394 =item print on closed filehandle %s
2396 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2397 Check your logic flow.
2399 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
2401 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2402 Check your logic flow.
2404 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2406 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2407 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2408 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2412 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2414 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2415 or defined with a different function prototype.
2417 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2419 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2420 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2421 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2422 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2424 =item Read on closed filehandle %s
2426 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2427 Check your logic flow.
2429 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2431 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2433 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2435 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2436 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2437 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2439 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2441 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2442 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2444 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2446 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2447 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2449 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2451 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2452 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2453 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2454 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2456 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2457 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2458 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2459 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2461 =item Reference is already weak
2463 (W) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2464 Doing so has no effect.
2466 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2468 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2469 reference count of other than 1.
2471 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2473 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2474 could match an empty string.
2476 =item regexp memory corruption
2478 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2479 expression compiler gave it.
2481 =item regexp out of space
2483 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2485 =item Reversed %s= operator
2487 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2488 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2490 =item Runaway format
2492 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2493 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2494 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2495 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2496 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2498 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2500 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2501 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2502 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2503 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2504 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2505 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2507 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2508 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2509 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2512 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2514 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2515 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2516 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2517 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2518 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2519 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2521 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2522 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2523 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2526 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2528 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2529 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2531 =item Search pattern not terminated
2533 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2534 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2535 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2537 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2539 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2540 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2542 =item select not implemented
2544 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2546 =item sem%s not implemented
2548 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2550 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2552 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2553 that had previously been marked as free.
2555 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2557 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2558 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2560 =item Send on closed socket
2562 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2563 Check your logic flow.
2565 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2567 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2570 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2572 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2573 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2575 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2577 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2578 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2580 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2582 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2587 Also known as "500 Server error".
2589 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2591 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2592 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2593 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2594 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2595 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2596 for more information:
2598 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2599 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2600 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2601 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2602 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2604 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2606 =item setegid() not implemented
2608 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2609 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2612 =item seteuid() not implemented
2614 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2615 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2618 =item setrgid() not implemented
2620 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2621 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2624 =item setruid() not implemented
2626 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2627 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2630 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2632 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2633 because the world might have written on it already.
2635 =item shm%s not implemented
2637 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2639 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2641 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2643 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2645 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2646 put it into the wrong package?
2648 =item sort is now a reserved word
2650 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2651 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2653 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2655 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2656 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2657 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2659 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2661 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2662 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2666 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2667 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2668 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2670 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2672 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2673 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2675 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2677 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2678 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2679 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2680 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2683 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2685 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2686 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2687 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2688 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2689 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2691 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2693 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2694 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2697 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2699 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2703 eval "sub name { ... }";
2706 =item Substitution loop
2708 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2709 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2710 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2711 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2713 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2715 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2716 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2717 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2719 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2721 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2722 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2723 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2725 =item substr outside of string
2727 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2728 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2729 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2730 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2731 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2733 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2735 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2736 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2738 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2740 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2741 real and effective uids or gids.
2745 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2747 A keyword is misspelled.
2748 A semicolon is missing.
2750 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2751 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2752 A closing quote is missing.
2754 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2755 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2756 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2757 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2758 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2759 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2760 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2761 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2762 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2764 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2766 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2767 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2770 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2772 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2773 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2774 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2775 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2777 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2779 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2780 Check your logic flow.
2782 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2784 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2785 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2787 =item tell() on unopened file
2789 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2790 never opened or has since been closed.
2792 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2794 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2795 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2797 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2799 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2800 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2809 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2810 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2812 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2814 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2815 to the probings of Configure.
2817 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2819 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2820 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2821 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2822 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2825 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2827 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2828 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2829 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2831 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL eviron elements (%s)
2833 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2835 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2836 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2837 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2838 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2839 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
2840 %ENV which produced the warning.
2842 =item times not implemented
2844 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2845 you're not running on Unix.
2847 =item Too few args to syscall
2849 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2850 system call to call, silly dilly.
2852 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2854 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2855 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2856 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2857 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2860 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2861 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2862 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2863 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2865 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2866 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2868 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2870 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2871 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2872 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2878 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2879 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2882 =item Too many args to syscall
2884 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2886 =item Too many arguments for %s
2888 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2890 =item trailing \ in regexp
2892 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2895 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
2897 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2898 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
2899 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
2901 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
2903 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2906 =item truncate not implemented
2908 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2909 Configure knows about.
2911 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2913 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2914 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2915 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2916 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2918 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2920 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
2921 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2923 =item umask not implemented
2925 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
2926 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
2928 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2930 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2932 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2934 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2935 contexts were entered and left.
2937 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2939 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2940 values were temporarily localized.
2942 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2944 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2945 were entered and left.
2947 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2949 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2950 scalars were allocated and freed.
2952 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2954 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2955 another package? See L<perlform>.
2957 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2959 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2960 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2962 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2964 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2965 has since been undefined.
2967 =item Undefined subroutine called
2969 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2970 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2972 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2974 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2975 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2977 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2979 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2980 another package? See L<perlform>.
2982 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
2984 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
2985 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
2987 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2989 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2990 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2992 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2994 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2996 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
2998 (F) The second argument of 3-arguments open is not one from the list
2999 of C<L<lt>>, C<L<gt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<+L<lt>>, C<+L<gt>>,
3000 C<+E<gt>E<gt>>, C<-|>, C<|-> of possible open() modes.
3002 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3004 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3005 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3006 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3007 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3009 =item unmatched () in regexp
3011 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3012 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
3013 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3015 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3017 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than
3018 opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket.
3019 As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the
3020 place you were last editing.
3022 =item unmatched [] in regexp
3024 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3025 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
3028 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3030 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
3031 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
3032 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
3034 =item Unrecognized character %s
3036 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3037 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3038 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3040 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3042 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
3045 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3047 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
3048 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
3050 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3052 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
3053 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
3054 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
3056 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3058 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
3059 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
3060 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3062 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3064 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3066 =item Unsupported function fork
3068 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3070 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
3071 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
3072 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3074 =item Unsupported function %s
3076 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3077 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3079 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3081 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3082 least that's what Configure thought.
3084 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
3086 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3087 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
3088 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
3089 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3091 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3093 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing an
3094 attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3095 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3096 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3098 =item Unterminated attribute list
3100 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start
3101 of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3102 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute
3103 too soon. See L<attributes>.
3105 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3107 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
3108 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3110 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3112 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
3113 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
3114 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
3115 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3117 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3119 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3120 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3122 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
3124 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
3125 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3127 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3129 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
3130 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
3131 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3133 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3135 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
3136 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
3137 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
3138 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
3140 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
3141 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
3142 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
3143 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
3144 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
3146 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3147 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
3148 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
3149 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
3151 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
3152 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3153 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3155 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3157 (D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
3158 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
3159 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
3160 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
3161 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
3162 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3164 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3166 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
3167 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
3170 =item Use of uninitialized value
3172 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
3173 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
3174 warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3176 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3178 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3180 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3182 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
3183 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
3184 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
3185 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
3186 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
3187 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
3191 when you meant to say
3193 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3195 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3196 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3201 when you should have said
3205 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3206 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3207 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3208 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3209 L<perlref> for more on this.
3211 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3213 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
3214 valid when C<untie> was called.
3216 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3218 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
3219 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
3220 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
3221 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
3222 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
3224 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3226 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3227 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3228 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3231 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3233 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
3234 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3235 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
3236 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
3237 on the front of your variable.
3239 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3241 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
3242 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
3243 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
3244 the outermost subroutine. For example:
3246 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3248 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3249 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
3250 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3251 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
3252 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
3253 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
3256 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
3257 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
3258 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
3259 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
3261 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3263 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
3264 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3266 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3267 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3268 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3269 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3270 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3271 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3273 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3274 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3275 will I<never> share the given variable.
3277 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3278 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3279 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3280 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3283 =item Variable syntax
3285 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3286 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3289 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3291 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3293 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3294 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3297 are supported and installed on your system.
3298 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3300 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3301 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3302 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3303 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3304 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3305 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3306 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3307 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3308 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3310 =item Warning: something's wrong
3312 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3313 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3315 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3317 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3318 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3320 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3322 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3323 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3324 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3325 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3329 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3333 but in actual fact, you got
3337 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3339 =item Write on closed filehandle %s
3341 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3342 Check your logic flow.
3344 =item X outside of string
3346 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3347 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3349 =item x outside of string
3351 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3352 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3354 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3356 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3358 =item Xsub called in sort
3360 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3362 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3364 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3365 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3366 Use a filename instead.
3368 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3370 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3371 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3372 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3373 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3375 =item You need to quote "%s"
3377 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3378 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3379 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3380 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3382 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
3384 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3385 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3386 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
3388 =item \1 better written as $1
3390 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3391 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3392 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3393 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3394 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3396 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3398 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3399 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3400 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3402 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3404 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3405 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3406 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3407 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3410 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3417 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3419 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3420 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3422 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3424 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3432 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3433 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3434 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3435 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3437 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3439 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3440 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3442 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3444 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3445 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3446 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3447 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"