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 (enabled by default).
12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
137 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
143 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
145 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
151 or a hash or array slice, such as:
153 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
154 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
156 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
158 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
159 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
162 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
164 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
165 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
166 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
168 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
170 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
171 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
172 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
173 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
174 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
175 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
177 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
179 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
180 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
182 =item assertion botched: %s
184 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
186 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
188 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
190 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
192 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
193 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
194 know which context to supply to the right side.
196 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
198 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
199 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
200 Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
201 created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
202 thread. See L<threads>.
204 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
206 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
207 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
209 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
211 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
212 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
213 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
219 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
221 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
222 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
225 bless $self, "$proto";
227 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
229 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
230 which is not in its key set.
232 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
234 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
235 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
237 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
239 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
240 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
241 outside any of those arenas.
243 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
245 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
246 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
247 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
248 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
250 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
252 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
253 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
254 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
255 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
258 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
260 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
262 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
264 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
265 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
266 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
267 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
268 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
269 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
272 =item Attempt to join self
274 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
275 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
276 to move the join() to some other thread.
278 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
280 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
281 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
282 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
283 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
284 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
287 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
289 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
290 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
291 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
294 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
296 (W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
297 can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
298 of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
300 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
303 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
305 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
306 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
307 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
309 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
311 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "locked"
312 attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is obsolete, has had no
313 effect since 5005 threads were removed, and will be removed in the next major
316 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
318 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "unique"
319 attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference. The :unique attribute has
320 had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and will be removed in the next major
323 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
325 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
326 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
327 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
328 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
330 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
332 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
333 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
334 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
336 =item Bad filehandle: %s
338 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
339 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
340 open(), or did it in another package.
342 =item Bad free() ignored
344 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
345 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
346 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
348 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
349 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
350 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
354 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
356 =item Badly placed ()'s
358 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
359 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
362 =item Bad name after %s::
364 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
365 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
374 $sym = "mypack::$var";
376 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
378 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
381 =item Bad realloc() ignored
383 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
384 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
385 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
387 =item Bad symbol for array
389 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
390 wasn't a symbol table entry.
392 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
394 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
395 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
398 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
400 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
401 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
403 =item Bad symbol for hash
405 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
406 wasn't a symbol table entry.
408 =item Bareword found in conditional
410 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
411 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
412 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
416 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
419 use constant TYPO => 1;
420 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
422 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
424 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
426 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
427 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
428 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
430 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
432 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
433 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
434 you need to predeclare a package?
436 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
438 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
439 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
442 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
444 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
445 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
446 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
447 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
448 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
450 =item \1 better written as $1
452 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
453 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
454 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
455 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
456 there are more than 9 backreferences.
458 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
460 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
461 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
462 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
464 =item bind() on closed socket %s
466 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
467 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
469 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
471 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
472 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
474 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
476 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
478 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
480 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
483 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
485 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
486 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
487 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
489 =item Callback called exit
491 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
492 exited by calling exit.
494 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
496 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
497 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
498 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
499 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
500 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
501 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
502 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
503 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
505 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
507 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
508 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
509 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
510 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
512 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
514 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
515 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
517 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
519 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
520 then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
521 triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
522 from that type of reference to a typeglob.
524 =item Cannot copy to %s in %s
526 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
527 be directly assigned not.
529 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
531 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
532 either with open() or binmode().
534 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
536 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
537 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
538 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
540 =item Can't bless non-reference value
542 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
543 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
545 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
547 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
548 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
550 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
552 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
554 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
556 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
557 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
558 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
560 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
562 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
563 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
564 like this will reproduce the error:
567 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
568 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
570 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
572 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
573 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
574 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
575 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
577 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
579 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
580 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
581 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
582 Something like this will reproduce the error:
585 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
586 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
588 =item Can't chdir to %s
590 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
591 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
593 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
595 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
598 =item Can't coerce array into hash
600 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
601 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
602 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
604 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
606 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
607 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
617 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
619 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
621 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
622 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
624 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
626 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
627 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
629 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
631 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
634 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
636 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
637 quotas or other plumbing problems.
639 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
641 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
642 class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration. The semantics may be
643 extended for other types of variables in future.
645 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
647 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
648 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
650 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
652 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
653 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
655 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
657 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
660 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
662 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
663 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
664 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
666 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
668 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
669 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
670 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
672 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
674 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
675 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
676 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
678 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
680 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
681 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
683 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
685 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
686 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
689 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
691 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
692 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
693 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
694 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
696 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
698 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
699 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
700 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
701 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
702 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
703 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
708 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
709 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
710 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
712 =item Can't execute %s
714 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
715 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
717 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
719 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
720 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
722 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
724 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
725 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
726 See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
727 for a complete list of available properties.
729 =item Can't find label %s
731 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
732 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
734 =item Can't find %s on PATH
736 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
739 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
741 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
742 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
743 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
745 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
747 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
748 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
749 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
751 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
753 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
754 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
755 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
757 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
759 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
760 example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
761 Unicode property, see
762 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
763 for a complete list of available properties.
764 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
765 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
770 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
773 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
775 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
778 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
780 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
781 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
782 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
783 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
784 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
785 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
786 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
787 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
788 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
789 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
790 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
791 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
792 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
793 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
794 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
796 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
798 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
799 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
801 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
803 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
804 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
806 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
808 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
809 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
811 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
813 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
814 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
815 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
816 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
818 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
820 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
821 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
822 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
824 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
826 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
829 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
831 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
832 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
833 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
834 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
836 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
838 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
839 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
840 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
841 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
842 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
843 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
845 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
847 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
848 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
851 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
853 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
854 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
855 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
856 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
857 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
858 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
861 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
863 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
864 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
866 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
868 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
869 may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
870 incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
871 between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
872 extension was built against an older version of the library that is
873 installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
876 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
878 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
879 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
880 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
883 =item Can't localize through a reference
885 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
886 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
887 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
888 that $ref will still be a reference.
890 =item Can't locate %s
892 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
893 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
894 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
895 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
896 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
897 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
898 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
900 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
902 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
903 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
904 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
905 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
907 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
909 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
910 for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
911 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
913 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
915 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
916 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
917 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
919 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
921 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
922 doesn't seem to exist.
924 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
926 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
927 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
929 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
931 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
934 =item Can't modify %s in %s
936 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
937 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
939 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
941 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
944 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
946 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
947 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
949 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
951 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
954 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
956 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
957 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
958 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
959 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
960 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
961 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
963 =item Can't open %s: %s
965 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
966 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
967 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
968 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
971 =item Can't open a reference
973 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
974 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
978 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
979 open is not supported.
981 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
983 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
984 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
985 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
986 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
988 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
990 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
991 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
992 the command line for writing.
994 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
996 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
997 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
998 command line for reading.
1000 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1002 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1003 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1004 the command line for writing.
1006 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1008 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1009 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1012 =item Can't open perl script%s
1014 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1016 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1017 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1018 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1020 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1022 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1023 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1024 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1025 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1028 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1030 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1031 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1032 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1033 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1034 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1035 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1037 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1039 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1040 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1041 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1043 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1045 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1046 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1048 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1050 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1051 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1053 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1055 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1056 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1057 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1059 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1061 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1062 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1065 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1067 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1068 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1070 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1072 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1073 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1074 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1075 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1078 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1080 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1081 open already. Bizarre.
1083 =item Can't take log of %g
1085 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1086 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1087 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1090 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1092 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1093 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1094 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1096 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1098 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1099 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1100 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1104 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1105 as the main Perl stack.
1107 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1109 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1110 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1111 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1112 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1114 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1116 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1117 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1118 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1120 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1122 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1123 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1125 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1127 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1128 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1130 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1132 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1133 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1134 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1136 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1138 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1139 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1140 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1142 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1144 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1147 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1149 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1150 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1151 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1152 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1155 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1157 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1158 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1159 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1160 is inside a big-endian group.
1162 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1164 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1165 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1166 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1167 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1170 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1172 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1173 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1174 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1176 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1178 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1179 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1181 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1183 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1184 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1185 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1187 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1189 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1190 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1191 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1192 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1193 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1196 =item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
1198 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1199 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1200 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1201 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1203 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1205 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1206 references can be weakened.
1208 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1210 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1211 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1212 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1214 =item Character following "\\c" must be ASCII
1216 (F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
1218 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1224 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1225 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1226 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1230 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1233 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1239 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1240 all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1243 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1245 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1251 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1252 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1253 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1255 pack("c", $x & 255);
1257 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1260 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1262 (W unpack) You tried something like
1264 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1266 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1267 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1268 modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1270 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1272 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1274 (W pack) You tried something like
1276 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1278 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1279 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1280 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1282 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1284 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1286 (W unpack) You tried something like
1288 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1290 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1291 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1292 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1294 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1296 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1298 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1300 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1302 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1303 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1305 =item Code missing after '/'
1307 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1308 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1310 =item %s: Command not found
1312 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1313 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1315 =item Compilation failed in require
1317 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1318 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1319 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1321 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1323 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1324 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1325 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1326 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1327 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1328 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1329 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1330 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1331 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1333 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1335 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1336 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1337 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1338 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1339 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1340 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1341 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1344 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1346 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1347 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1348 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1349 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1350 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1351 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1352 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1355 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1357 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1358 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1359 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1361 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1363 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1364 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1365 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1366 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1369 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1371 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1372 the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1373 forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
1377 =item Constant is not %s reference
1379 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1380 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1381 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1382 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1383 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1385 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1387 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1388 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1389 commentary and workarounds.
1391 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1393 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1394 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1397 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1399 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1400 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1402 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1404 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1406 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1408 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1409 expression compiler gave it.
1411 =item corrupted regexp program
1413 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1416 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1418 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1420 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1422 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1423 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1426 =item \\c%c" more clearly written simply as "%c
1428 (D deprecated) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1429 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1430 written as simply itself.
1432 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1434 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1435 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1436 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1437 which case it indicates something else.
1439 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1440 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1442 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1444 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1445 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1446 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1448 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1450 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1451 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1452 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1454 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1456 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1457 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1459 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1461 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1462 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1463 that triggers this error.
1465 =item Deprecated character in \\N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \\N{%s<-- HERE %s
1467 (D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
1468 But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names are
1469 deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character and
1470 continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces, parentheses or
1473 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1475 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1476 There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1477 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1478 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1479 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1480 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1481 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1483 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1487 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1489 Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1490 have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1492 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1494 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1496 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1497 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1498 to create a dangling reference.
1500 =item Did not produce a valid header
1504 =item %s did not return a true value
1506 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1507 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1508 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1509 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1511 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1513 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1516 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1518 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1519 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1522 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1524 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1525 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1530 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1531 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1533 =item Document contains no data
1537 =item Dot after %s literal is concatenation
1539 (D) You had something like 0x123.456 in your code. This is currently
1540 parsed as the hexadecimal number 0x123 concatenated with the decimal
1541 number 456, not 0x123 + 0x456/0x1000 -- we only support decimal
1542 decimal points. If you meant it to be a fraction, you'll need to use
1543 Math::BigFloat's from_hex (or friends). If you meant it to be
1544 concatenation, just put spaces around the dot to make it clearer. In
1545 5.14.0, we expect to change this to mean a hex fraction. (Of course,
1546 everything above applies to octal and binary constants, too.)
1548 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1550 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1551 define a C<$VERSION.>
1553 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1555 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1556 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1558 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1560 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1562 =item do_study: out of memory
1564 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1566 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1568 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1569 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1570 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1571 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1572 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1573 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1574 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1575 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1577 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1579 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1580 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1582 =item dump is not supported
1584 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1586 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1588 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1591 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1593 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1594 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1596 =item elseif should be elsif
1598 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1599 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1600 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1601 unlikely to be what you want.
1605 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1606 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1607 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1609 =item entering effective %s failed
1611 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1612 effective uids or gids failed.
1614 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1616 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1617 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1618 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1620 =item Error converting file specification %s
1622 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1623 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1624 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1625 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1626 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1628 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1630 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1631 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1632 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1634 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
1636 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1637 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1638 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1639 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1640 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1641 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1643 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1645 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1646 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1647 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1649 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1651 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1652 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1654 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1657 =item Excessively long <> operator
1659 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1660 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1661 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1662 variable and glob that.
1664 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1666 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1668 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
1670 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1672 =item Exiting eval via %s
1674 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1675 goto, or a loop control statement.
1677 =item Exiting format via %s
1679 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1680 goto, or a loop control statement.
1682 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1684 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1685 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1686 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1688 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1690 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1691 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1693 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1695 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1696 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1698 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1700 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1701 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1702 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1703 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1705 =item %s: Expression syntax
1707 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1708 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1710 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1712 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1713 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1714 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1716 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1718 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1719 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1720 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1721 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1722 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1724 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1726 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1727 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1728 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1729 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1731 =item fcntl is not implemented
1733 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1734 PDP-11 or something?
1736 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1738 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1741 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1743 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1744 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1745 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1748 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1750 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1751 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1752 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1753 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1755 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1757 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1758 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1759 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1760 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1761 Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1762 (also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1764 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1766 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1767 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1770 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1772 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1773 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
1775 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1777 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1778 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1779 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1782 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1784 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1785 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1786 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1789 =item Format not terminated
1791 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1792 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1794 =item Format %s redefined
1796 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1799 no warnings 'redefine';
1800 eval "format NAME =...";
1803 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1813 (or something like that).
1815 =item %s found where operator expected
1817 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1818 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1819 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1820 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1822 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1824 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1826 =item gethostent not implemented
1828 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1829 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1832 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1834 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1835 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1837 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1839 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1840 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1842 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1844 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1845 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1846 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1848 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1850 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
1851 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
1852 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1853 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1855 =item glob failed (%s)
1857 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1858 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1859 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1860 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1861 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1862 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1863 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1864 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1865 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1866 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1867 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1869 =item Glob not terminated
1871 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1872 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1873 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1874 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1876 =item gmtime(%.0f) too large
1878 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was larger than
1879 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1880 date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1881 not-a-number value).
1883 =item gmtime(%.0f) too small
1885 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was smaller than
1886 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1887 date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1888 not-a-number value).
1890 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1892 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1893 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1895 =item goto must have label
1897 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1898 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1900 =item ()-group starts with a count
1902 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
1903 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1904 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1906 =item %s had compilation errors.
1908 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1910 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1912 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1913 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1914 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1916 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1918 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1919 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1921 =item %s has too many errors
1923 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1924 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1926 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1928 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1929 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1930 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1932 =item Identifier too long
1934 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1935 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1936 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1937 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1939 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
1941 (W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return a
1942 zero length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
1943 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
1944 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
1946 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1948 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1950 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1952 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1953 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1956 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1958 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1959 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1960 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1961 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1962 to your Perl administrator.
1964 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1966 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
1967 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1969 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1971 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1972 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1974 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
1976 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
1978 =item Illegal division by zero
1980 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1981 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1984 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1986 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1987 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1988 number stopped before the illegal character.
1990 =item Illegal modulus zero
1992 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1993 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1995 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1997 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1998 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2000 =item Illegal octal digit %s
2002 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2004 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
2006 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2007 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
2009 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2011 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2012 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2014 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2016 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2017 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2018 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2020 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2022 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2023 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2024 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2027 =item (in cleanup) %s
2029 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2030 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2031 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2032 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2033 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2035 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2036 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2038 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2040 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2041 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2042 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2044 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2046 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2047 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2048 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2050 =item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2052 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2053 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2054 either consume text or fail.
2056 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2059 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2061 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2062 of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2063 C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2064 as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2066 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2068 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2069 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2070 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2071 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2072 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2073 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2074 L<perlsec> for more information.
2076 =item Insecure directory in %s
2078 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2079 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2080 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2083 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2085 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2086 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2087 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2088 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2089 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2091 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2093 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2094 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2095 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2096 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2097 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2098 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2099 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2100 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2103 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2105 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2106 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2107 integers for your architecture.
2109 =item Integer overflow in version
2111 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2112 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2113 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2114 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2115 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2118 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2120 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2121 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2124 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2126 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2127 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2128 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2129 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2130 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2131 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2133 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2135 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2136 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2139 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2141 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2142 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2143 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2144 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2146 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2148 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2149 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2151 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2153 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2154 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2156 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2158 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2159 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2161 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2163 (W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2164 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2165 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2166 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2167 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2168 escape was discovered.
2170 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2172 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2173 or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2174 (Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2176 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2178 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2179 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2180 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2181 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2182 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2184 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2186 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2187 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2189 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2191 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2192 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2193 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2196 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2198 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2199 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2200 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2201 list was terminated too soon.
2203 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2205 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2206 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2207 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2210 =item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
2212 (F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
2213 that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
2216 =item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
2218 (F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
2219 See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
2221 =item ioctl is not implemented
2223 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2224 strange for a machine that supports C.
2226 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2228 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2229 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2231 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2233 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2234 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2237 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2239 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2240 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2242 =item $* is no longer supported
2244 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
2245 been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In previous versions of perl the use of
2246 C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line matching within a string.
2248 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2249 modifiers. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value then all regular
2250 expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
2252 =item $# is no longer supported
2254 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
2255 been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2256 printf/sprintf functions instead.
2258 =item `%s' is not a code reference
2260 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2261 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
2264 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2266 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2269 =item junk on end of regexp
2271 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2273 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2275 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2276 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2279 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2281 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2282 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2285 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2287 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2288 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2291 =item leaving effective %s failed
2293 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2294 effective uids or gids failed.
2296 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2298 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2299 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2300 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2302 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2304 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2305 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn_flags|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn_flags> or similar), but
2306 tried to insert a character that couldn't be part of the current input.
2307 This is an inherent pitfall of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the
2308 reasons to avoid it. Where it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only
2309 plain ASCII is recommended.
2311 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2313 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2316 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2318 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2319 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2322 =item localtime(%.0f) too large
2324 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was larger
2325 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2326 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2327 not-a-number value).
2329 =item localtime(%.0f) too small
2331 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was smaller
2332 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2333 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2334 not-a-number value).
2336 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2338 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2339 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2341 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2343 (W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2344 for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2345 hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2346 because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2347 are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2348 You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2350 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
2352 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2353 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2354 instead on the filehandle.)
2356 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2358 (W misc) Making a subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined
2359 by declaring the subroutine with a lvalue attribute is not
2360 possible. To make the the subroutine a lvalue subroutine add the
2361 lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the the declaration before
2364 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2366 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2367 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2368 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2370 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2372 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2373 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2375 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2377 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2378 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2380 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2382 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2389 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2390 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2391 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2392 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2394 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2396 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2397 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2398 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2399 when the function is called.
2401 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2403 (S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2404 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2406 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2407 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2408 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2410 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2411 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2412 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2415 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2417 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2419 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2420 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2422 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2424 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2426 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2428 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2429 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2431 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2433 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2434 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2436 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2438 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2439 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2441 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%d) exceeded
2443 (F) Perl aborted due to a too high number of signals pending. This
2444 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2445 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2446 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2447 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2449 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2451 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2452 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2453 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2456 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2458 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2459 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2462 =item % may not be used in pack
2464 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2465 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2466 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2468 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2470 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2471 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2473 =item Method %s not permitted
2477 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2479 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2480 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2481 ended earlier on the current line.
2483 =item Misplaced _ in number
2485 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2486 separate two digits.
2488 =item Missing argument in %s
2490 (W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2493 =item Missing argument to -%c
2495 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2496 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2498 =item Missing braces on \N{}
2500 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2501 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space (or
2502 comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2503 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately follow
2506 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2508 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2509 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2511 =item Missing command in piped open
2513 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2514 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2517 =item Missing control char name in \c
2519 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2522 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2524 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2525 they have a name with which they can be found.
2527 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2529 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2530 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2531 can vary from one line to the next.
2533 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2535 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2536 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2538 =item Missing right brace on %s
2540 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2542 =item Missing right brace on \\N{} or unescaped left brace after \\N
2545 C<\N> has two meanings.
2547 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed
2548 in braces, meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that name.
2549 Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2550 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns, it doesn't
2551 have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2553 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only) in
2554 patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short for
2555 C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2557 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately by a
2558 left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if
2559 the braces form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes
2560 that this means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
2561 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a C<\N{>
2562 and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2564 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was mistakenly
2565 omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and
2566 raises this error. If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant
2567 the latter, escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
2569 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2571 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2572 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2575 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2577 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2578 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2579 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2581 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2583 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2584 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2585 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2587 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2590 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2592 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2593 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2596 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2597 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2600 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2602 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2603 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2606 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2608 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2609 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2611 =item Module name must be constant
2613 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2615 =item Module name required with -%c option
2617 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2618 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2619 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2621 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
2623 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2624 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2625 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2626 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2628 =item msg%s not implemented
2630 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2632 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2634 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2635 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2637 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2639 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2640 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2641 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2643 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2645 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2648 =item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
2650 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2651 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2652 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2654 =item \\N in a character class must be a named character: \\N{...}
2656 (F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
2657 character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses its
2658 specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not what you want.
2660 =item \\N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
2662 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or sequence
2663 was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that bypass the lexer,
2664 such as using single-quotish context, or an extra backslash in double quotish:
2666 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
2667 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
2670 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
2672 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2675 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2679 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2681 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2682 doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2684 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2685 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2687 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2690 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2692 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2693 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2694 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2695 provided for this purpose.
2697 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2698 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2699 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2700 will not trigger this warning.
2702 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \\N{U+...}
2704 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2705 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than 0 - 9
2706 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2708 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2710 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2711 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2713 =item Negative length
2715 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2716 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2718 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2720 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2721 greater than or equal to zero.
2723 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2725 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2726 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2727 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2729 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2730 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2732 =item %s never introduced
2734 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2735 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2737 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2739 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2740 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2743 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2745 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2746 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2747 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2748 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2750 =item No comma allowed after %s
2752 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2753 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2754 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2756 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2757 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2758 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2759 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2760 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2761 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2762 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2763 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2764 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2765 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2766 this error was triggered?
2768 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2770 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2771 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2772 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2774 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2776 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2777 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2778 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2781 =item No dbm on this machine
2783 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2784 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2786 =item No DB::sub routine defined
2788 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2789 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2790 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2791 of each ordinary subroutine call.
2793 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2795 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2797 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2799 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2800 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2801 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2803 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2805 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2806 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2808 =item No input file after < on command line
2810 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2811 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2812 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2816 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2817 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2819 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2821 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2822 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2823 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2824 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2826 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2828 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2829 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2831 =item No output file after > on command line
2833 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2834 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2835 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2837 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2839 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2840 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2841 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2843 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2845 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2846 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2847 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2849 =item No Perl script found in input
2851 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2852 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2854 =item No setregid available
2856 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2859 =item No setreuid available
2861 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2864 =item No %s specified for -%c
2866 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2867 you haven't specified one.
2869 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2871 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2872 but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2873 package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2875 =item No such class %s
2877 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2878 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2880 =item No such hook: %s
2882 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl. Currently, Perl
2883 accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks
2885 =item No such pipe open
2887 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2888 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2889 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2891 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2893 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2894 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2895 names on your system.
2897 =item Not a CODE reference
2899 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2900 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2901 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2904 =item Not a format reference
2906 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2907 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2909 =item Not a GLOB reference
2911 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2912 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2913 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2914 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2916 =item Not a HASH reference
2918 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2919 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2920 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2922 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2924 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2925 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2926 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2928 =item Not a perl script
2930 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2931 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2934 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2936 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2937 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2938 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2940 =item Not a subroutine reference
2942 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2943 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2944 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2947 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2949 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2950 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2952 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2954 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2956 =item Not enough format arguments
2958 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2959 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2963 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2964 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2967 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2969 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2970 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2971 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2972 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2973 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2975 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
2977 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
2978 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
2979 select. See L<perlfunc/select>
2981 =item Null filename used
2983 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2984 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2986 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2988 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2991 =item Null picture in formline
2993 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2994 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2995 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2999 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3001 =item NULL regexp argument
3003 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
3005 =item NULL regexp parameter
3007 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3009 =item Number too long
3011 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
3012 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
3013 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3014 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3017 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
3019 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3020 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3023 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3025 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
3026 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3027 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
3029 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
3031 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3033 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3034 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
3036 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3038 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3039 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3041 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
3043 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3044 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3046 =item Offset outside string
3048 (F, W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3049 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
3050 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3051 take place when going past the end of the string when either
3052 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
3053 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3056 =item %s() on unopened %s
3058 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3059 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3060 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3062 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3064 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3065 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3069 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3073 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3075 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3077 (W io deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3078 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3079 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3082 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3084 (W io deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3085 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3086 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3089 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
3091 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3092 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3093 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3094 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
3096 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3098 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3099 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3100 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3101 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3104 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
3106 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3107 in the current lexical scope.
3109 =item Out of memory!
3111 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3112 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3113 no option but to exit immediately.
3115 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3116 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3117 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3118 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3119 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3121 =item Out of memory during %s extend
3123 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3124 the largest possible memory allocation.
3126 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
3128 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3129 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
3130 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3131 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
3133 =item Out of memory during request for %s
3135 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3136 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3139 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3140 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
3141 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3142 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
3143 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3144 where the failed request happened.
3146 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3148 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
3149 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3150 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
3152 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
3154 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3155 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3158 =item '.' outside of string in pack
3160 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3161 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3163 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
3165 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3166 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3168 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3170 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3171 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3172 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3174 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3176 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3177 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3180 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3182 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3183 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3185 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3187 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3188 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3189 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3190 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
3192 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3194 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3195 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3199 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3200 page. See L<perlform>.
3204 (P) An internal error.
3206 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3208 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3209 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3210 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3211 enter this branch on this platform.
3213 =item panic: ck_grep
3215 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3217 =item panic: ck_split
3219 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3221 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3223 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3224 there are in the savestack.
3226 =item panic: del_backref
3228 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3231 =item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3233 (P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3234 last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3235 an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3236 a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3240 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3241 it wasn't an eval context.
3243 =item panic: do_subst
3245 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3248 =item panic: do_trans_%s
3250 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
3253 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3255 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
3260 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3264 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3265 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3267 =item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3269 (P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
3270 but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3271 contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3272 adds a new object to the hash.
3274 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3276 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3278 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3280 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3282 =item panic: kid popen errno read
3284 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3288 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3289 it wasn't a block context.
3291 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3293 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3296 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3298 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3299 invalid enum on the top of it.
3301 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3303 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3304 references to an object.
3308 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3310 =item panic: memory wrap
3312 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3314 =item panic: pad_alloc
3316 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3317 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3319 =item panic: pad_free curpad
3321 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3322 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3324 =item panic: pad_free po
3326 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3328 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
3330 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3331 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3333 =item panic: pad_sv po
3335 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3337 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3339 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3340 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3342 =item panic: pad_swipe po
3344 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3346 =item panic: pp_iter
3348 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3350 =item panic: pp_match%s
3352 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3355 =item panic: pp_split
3357 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3359 =item panic: realloc
3361 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3363 =item panic: restartop
3365 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3366 didn't supply the destination.
3370 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3371 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3373 =item panic: scan_num
3375 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3377 =item panic: sv_chop %s
3379 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3380 scalar's string buffer.
3382 =item panic: sv_insert
3384 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3387 =item panic: top_env
3389 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
3391 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3393 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3396 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3398 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3399 to even) byte length.
3401 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3403 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3404 to even) byte length.
3408 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3410 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3412 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3413 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3414 nesting limit is exceeded.
3416 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3419 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3421 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3427 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3429 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
3431 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3433 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3434 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3435 redirected it with select().)
3437 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3439 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3440 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3441 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3443 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3445 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3446 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3447 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3448 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3450 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3452 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3453 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3454 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3456 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3458 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3459 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3461 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3463 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3465 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3467 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3469 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3470 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3473 are supported and installed on your system.
3474 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3476 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3477 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3478 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3479 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3480 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3481 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3482 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3483 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3484 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3485 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3487 =item pid %x not a child
3489 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3490 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3491 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3493 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3495 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3497 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3499 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3500 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3501 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3502 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3503 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3505 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3507 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3508 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3510 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3512 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3513 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3514 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3515 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3516 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3517 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3519 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3521 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3522 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3523 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3524 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3525 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3526 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3528 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3530 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3531 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3532 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3533 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3534 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3535 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3537 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3539 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3540 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3541 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3542 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3544 You probably wrote something like this:
3551 when you should have written this:
3558 If you really want comments, build your list the
3559 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3563 'b', # another comment
3566 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3568 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3569 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3570 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3573 You probably wrote something like this:
3577 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3578 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3582 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3584 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3585 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3586 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3587 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3589 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3591 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3592 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3594 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3596 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3597 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3598 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3599 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3601 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3603 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3604 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3605 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3606 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3608 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3610 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3611 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
3612 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
3613 followed by the word 'bar'.
3615 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3616 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3618 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3619 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3620 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3622 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3624 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3628 is now misinterpreted as
3632 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3633 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3634 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3637 =item Premature end of script headers
3641 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3643 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3644 before now. Check your control flow.
3646 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3648 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3649 before now. Check your control flow.
3651 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3653 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3654 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3655 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3656 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3659 =item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3661 (W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is useless,
3662 since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3664 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3666 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3667 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3669 =item Prototype not terminated
3671 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3674 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3676 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3677 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3678 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3680 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3682 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3683 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3684 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3686 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3688 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3689 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3690 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3691 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3692 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3694 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3697 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3699 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3700 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3701 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3702 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3704 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3706 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3707 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3709 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3711 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3712 before now. Check your control flow.
3714 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3716 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3718 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3720 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3722 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
3724 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3726 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3728 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3731 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3733 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3734 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3735 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3737 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3739 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3740 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3741 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
3743 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3745 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3746 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3749 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3751 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3752 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3753 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3754 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3756 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3757 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3758 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3759 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3761 =item Reference is already weak
3763 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3764 Doing so has no effect.
3766 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3768 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3769 a reference count of other than 1.
3771 =item Reference to invalid group 0
3773 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
3774 capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
3775 backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
3776 backreferences), but using 0 does not make sense.
3778 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3780 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3781 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3782 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3783 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
3785 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3788 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3790 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
3791 not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
3792 where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
3794 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3797 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3799 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3800 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3801 as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3802 correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3804 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3807 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3809 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3810 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3811 of the C<....> part.
3813 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3816 =item regexp memory corruption
3818 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3819 expression compiler gave it.
3821 =item Regexp out of space
3823 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3826 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3828 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
3829 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3830 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3832 =item Replacement list is longer than search list
3834 (W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
3835 search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
3838 =item Reversed %s= operator
3840 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3841 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3843 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3845 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
3846 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3848 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3850 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3851 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3852 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3853 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3855 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3857 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3858 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3859 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3860 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3861 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3862 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3863 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3865 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3866 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3867 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3870 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3872 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3873 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3874 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3875 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3876 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3877 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3878 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3880 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3881 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3882 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3885 =item Search pattern not terminated
3887 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3888 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3889 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3891 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
3892 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3893 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3894 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3896 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
3898 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
3901 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
3902 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
3903 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
3904 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
3906 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3908 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3909 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3911 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3913 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
3914 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3916 =item select not implemented
3918 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3920 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3922 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3923 the current implementation.
3925 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3927 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3928 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3930 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3932 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3933 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3935 =item sem%s not implemented
3937 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3939 =item send() on closed socket %s
3941 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3942 before now. Check your control flow.
3944 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3946 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3947 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3950 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3952 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3953 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3954 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3956 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3958 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3959 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3960 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3962 =item Sequence \\%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3964 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
3965 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
3967 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3969 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3970 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3971 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3974 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3976 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3977 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3978 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3981 =item 500 Server error
3987 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3988 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3989 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3990 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3991 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3992 produce a valid header".
3994 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3996 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3997 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3998 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3999 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
4000 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
4001 Please see the following for more information:
4003 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
4004 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
4005 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
4007 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
4009 =item setegid() not implemented
4011 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4012 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4015 =item seteuid() not implemented
4017 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4018 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4021 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
4023 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4024 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4027 =item setrgid() not implemented
4029 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4030 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4033 =item setruid() not implemented
4035 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4036 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4039 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4041 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4042 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
4043 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4045 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
4047 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
4048 world, because the world might have written on it already.
4050 =item Setuid script not plain file
4052 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
4053 but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
4055 =item shm%s not implemented
4057 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4059 =item !=~ should be !~
4061 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4062 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4063 operators: probably not what you intended.
4065 =item <> should be quotes
4067 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4070 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4072 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
4073 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4074 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4075 probably not what you had in mind.
4077 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
4079 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4082 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
4084 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4085 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
4087 =item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4089 (F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4090 overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4093 =item sort is now a reserved word
4095 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4096 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4098 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4100 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4101 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4103 =item splice() offset past end of array
4105 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
4106 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
4107 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
4108 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
4113 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4114 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
4115 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
4117 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
4119 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4120 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4121 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4122 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4125 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
4127 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4128 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4130 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
4132 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4133 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4134 C<can> may break this.
4136 =item Subroutine %s redefined
4138 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
4141 no warnings 'redefine';
4142 eval "sub name { ... }";
4145 =item Substitution loop
4147 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4148 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4149 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
4150 L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
4152 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
4154 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4155 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4156 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4158 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
4160 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4161 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4162 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4164 =item substr outside of string
4166 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
4167 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4168 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4169 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4170 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
4172 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4174 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
4175 inferior to its current type.
4177 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4179 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
4180 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
4181 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
4182 clustering parentheses:
4184 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4186 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4187 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4189 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4191 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
4192 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4193 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4195 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
4197 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4198 and effective uids or gids.
4202 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4206 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4208 A keyword is misspelled.
4209 A semicolon is missing.
4211 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4212 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4213 A closing quote is missing.
4215 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4216 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4217 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4218 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
4219 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
4220 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4221 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4222 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
4223 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
4226 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4228 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4229 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4232 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4234 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4235 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4236 or "my $var" or "our $var".
4238 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4240 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4242 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4244 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4246 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
4248 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4249 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4250 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4251 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
4253 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
4255 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4256 before now. Check your control flow.
4258 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4260 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4261 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4263 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4265 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4266 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
4268 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
4270 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4271 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4273 =item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4275 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4276 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4278 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
4280 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4281 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4290 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4291 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
4293 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
4295 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4296 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
4297 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
4298 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4301 =item The %s function is unimplemented
4303 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4304 to the probings of Configure.
4306 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
4308 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4309 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4310 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4313 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4315 (F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
4317 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
4319 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4321 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
4322 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4323 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4324 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4325 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4326 target of the change to
4327 %ENV which produced the warning.
4329 =item thread failed to start: %s
4331 (W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
4333 =item times not implemented
4335 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4336 suspect you're not running on Unix.
4338 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4340 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4341 B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
4342 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4343 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4346 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4347 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
4348 editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of Perl's first
4349 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
4351 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4352 B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
4354 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4356 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4357 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4358 specified an illegal mapping.
4359 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4361 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4363 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
4365 =item Too few args to syscall
4367 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4368 system call to call, silly dilly.
4370 =item Too late for "-%s" option
4372 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4373 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4375 In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options are
4376 not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4378 The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as well
4379 (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either specify
4380 this option on the command line, or, if your system supports it, make your
4381 script executable and run it directly instead of passing it to perl.
4383 =item Too late to run %s block
4385 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4386 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
4387 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4388 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4391 =item Too many args to syscall
4393 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
4395 =item Too many arguments for %s
4397 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4401 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4402 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4406 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4407 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4409 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
4411 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4412 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
4414 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
4416 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
4417 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4418 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
4420 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
4422 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4423 y/// or y[][] construct.
4425 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4427 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4428 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4430 =item truncate not implemented
4432 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4433 Configure knows about.
4435 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4437 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
4438 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4439 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
4440 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4442 =item umask not implemented
4444 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4445 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
4447 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4449 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4451 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4453 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4454 many execution contexts were entered and left.
4456 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4458 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4459 many values were temporarily localized.
4461 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4463 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4464 many blocks were entered and left.
4466 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4468 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4469 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
4471 =item Undefined format "%s" called
4473 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4474 another package? See L<perlform>.
4476 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4478 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4479 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4481 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4483 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4484 since been undefined.
4486 =item Undefined subroutine called
4488 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4489 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4491 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
4493 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4494 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4496 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
4498 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4499 another package? See L<perlform>.
4501 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4503 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4504 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4507 =item %s: Undefined variable
4509 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4510 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4512 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4514 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4515 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4517 =item Unicode non-character %s is illegal for interchange
4519 (W utf8) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are defined by the
4520 Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those are legal codepoints, but are
4521 reserved for internal use; so, applications shouldn't attempt to exchange
4522 them. In some cases, this message is also given if you use a codepoint that
4523 isn't in Unicode--that is it is above the legal maximum of U+10FFFF. These
4524 aren't legal at all in Unicode, so they are illegal for interchange, but can be
4525 used internally in a Perl program. If you know what you are doing you can turn
4526 off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4528 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
4530 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4533 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4535 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
4536 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
4537 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
4539 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4541 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4542 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4543 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4544 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4545 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4546 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4548 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4550 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4551 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4552 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4553 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
4555 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4557 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4559 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4561 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4562 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4563 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4564 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4565 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4568 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4569 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4571 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4573 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4574 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4576 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4578 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4579 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4581 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4583 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4584 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4586 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4587 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
4589 =item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4591 (F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4592 after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4593 L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4597 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4599 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
4600 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
4601 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4602 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4604 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4606 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
4607 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4608 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4609 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4611 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
4613 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4614 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4615 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4616 you were last editing.
4618 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4620 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4621 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4622 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4625 =item Unrecognized character %s; marked by <-- HERE after %s near column %d
4627 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
4628 in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you tried
4629 to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
4631 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4633 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4634 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4635 understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
4636 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4637 escape was discovered.
4639 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
4641 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4642 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4643 change in a future version of Perl.
4645 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4647 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4648 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4649 change in a future version of Perl.
4650 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4651 escape was discovered.
4653 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4655 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4656 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4659 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
4661 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4662 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4663 bad switch on your behalf.)
4665 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4667 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4668 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
4669 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
4671 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4673 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4675 =item Unsupported function %s
4677 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4678 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4680 =item Unsupported function fork
4682 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4684 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4685 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4686 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
4688 =item Unsupported script encoding %s
4690 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
4691 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
4693 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4695 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4696 least that's what Configure thought.
4698 =item Unterminated attribute list
4700 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4701 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4702 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4703 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
4705 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4707 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4708 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
4709 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4710 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4712 =item Unterminated compressed integer
4714 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4715 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4716 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4718 =item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4720 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
4721 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4723 =item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4725 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
4726 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4728 =item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4730 (F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
4731 a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
4733 =item Unterminated <> operator
4735 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
4736 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4737 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4738 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
4740 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
4742 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4743 still valid when C<untie> was called.
4745 =item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4747 (F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4748 See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4750 =item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4752 (F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4753 See L<Win32> for more information.
4755 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4757 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4758 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
4760 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
4764 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
4766 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4767 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4769 =item Useless localization of %s
4771 (W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4772 legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4773 some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4775 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4777 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4778 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
4780 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
4784 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
4786 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4787 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4789 =item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
4791 (W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
4792 same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
4793 about the /d modifier.
4795 =item Useless use of %s in void context
4797 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
4798 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4799 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4800 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4801 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4802 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4807 when you meant to say
4809 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4811 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4812 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4817 when you should have said
4821 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4822 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4823 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4824 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4825 L<perlref> for more on this.
4827 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4828 since they are often used in statements like
4830 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
4832 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4835 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
4837 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4839 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4841 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4845 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4847 =item Useless use of %s with no values
4849 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
4850 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4851 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4852 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4853 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4854 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4856 =item "use" not allowed in expression
4858 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4859 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4861 =item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated
4863 (D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
4864 is deprecated. See L<perlvar/"$[">.
4866 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4868 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
4869 form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4871 =item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
4873 (D deprecated) The values you give to a format should be
4874 separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
4876 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4878 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4879 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4880 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4883 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4884 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4886 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4888 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4889 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4891 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4893 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4894 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4895 used. (This may change in the future.)
4897 =item Use of := for an empty attribute list is deprecated
4899 (D deprecated) The construction C<my $x := 42> currently
4900 parses correctly in perl, being equivalent to C<my $x : = 42>
4901 (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>). This useless
4902 construct is now deprecated, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new
4903 operator in the future.
4905 =item Use of freed value in iteration
4907 (F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
4908 This error is typically caused by code like the following:
4911 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
4913 You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
4914 For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
4915 reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
4916 middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
4918 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4920 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4921 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4923 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
4925 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4926 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4927 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
4929 =item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
4931 (D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
4932 scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
4934 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4936 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4937 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4938 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4939 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4942 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4943 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4944 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4945 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4948 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
4949 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4950 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4951 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4954 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4955 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
4956 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
4958 =item Use of octal value above 377 is deprecated
4960 (D deprecated, W regexp) There is a constant in the regular expression whose
4961 value is interpeted by Perl as octal and larger than 377 (255 decimal, 0xFF
4962 hex). Perl may take this to mean different things depending on the rest of
4963 the regular expression. If you meant such an octal value, convert it to
4964 hexadecimal and use C<\xHH> or C<\x{HH}> instead. If you meant to have
4965 part of it mean a backreference, use C<\g> for that. See L<perlre>.
4967 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4969 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4970 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4972 =item Use of %s is deprecated
4974 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
4975 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4976 old way has bad side effects.
4978 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4980 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4981 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4982 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4984 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4986 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4987 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4988 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4991 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
4993 (W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
4994 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4995 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
4997 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
4998 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4999 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
5000 operators and then you assumably know what you are doing.
5002 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
5004 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
5005 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
5006 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
5007 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
5008 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
5009 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
5011 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
5013 (W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
5014 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
5015 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
5016 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
5018 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
5020 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
5021 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
5022 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
5024 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
5025 name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
5026 do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
5027 in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
5028 displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
5029 program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
5030 . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
5031 even though there is no C<.> in your program.
5033 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
5035 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
5036 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
5037 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
5038 be removed in a future version.
5040 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
5042 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
5043 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
5044 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
5045 removed in a future version.
5047 =item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class
5049 (W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of more than one character.
5050 Currently all but the first one are discarded when used in a regular
5051 expression pattern bracketed character class.
5053 =item Using just the first characters returned by \N{}
5055 (W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of characters. There is a finite
5056 limit as to the number of characters that can be used, which this sequence
5057 exceeded. In the message, the characters in the sequence are separated by
5058 dots, and each is shown by its ordinal in hex. Anything to the left of the
5059 C<HERE> was retained; anything to the right was discarded.
5061 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
5063 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of a UTF-16 surrogate by
5064 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
5065 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
5066 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
5067 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
5068 character. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn off
5069 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
5071 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
5073 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
5074 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
5075 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
5076 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
5077 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
5078 C<defined> operator.
5080 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
5082 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
5083 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
5084 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
5087 =item Variable "%s" is not available
5089 (W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5090 attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
5091 This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
5092 declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
5093 (Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
5094 subs are created at run-time.) For example,
5096 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
5098 At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
5099 since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
5100 the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
5101 now been created and is live:
5103 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
5105 The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
5106 gone out of scope, for example,
5114 Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
5115 executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
5117 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
5119 (W misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
5120 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
5121 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
5122 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
5123 front of your variable.
5125 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
5127 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
5128 known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
5130 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5132 (W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the current
5133 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
5134 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
5135 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
5136 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
5138 =item Variable syntax
5140 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
5141 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
5144 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
5146 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
5147 lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
5149 When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
5150 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
5151 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5152 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5153 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
5154 variable will no longer be shared.
5156 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5157 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
5158 reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
5159 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
5161 =item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5163 (F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an argument
5164 or check that you are using the right verb.
5166 =item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5168 (F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
5169 argument or check that you are using the right verb.
5171 =item Version number must be a constant number
5173 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
5174 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
5177 =item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
5179 (W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
5182 =item Warning: something's wrong
5184 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
5185 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5187 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
5189 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
5190 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
5193 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
5195 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
5196 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
5197 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
5198 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
5202 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
5206 but in actual fact, you got
5210 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
5212 =item Wide character in %s
5214 (S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
5215 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
5216 way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
5217 output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
5218 warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
5219 cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
5220 filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
5222 =item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
5224 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
5225 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
5226 determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
5227 of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
5229 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
5231 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
5232 before now. Check your control flow.
5234 =item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
5236 When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
5237 into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5238 this encoding, for example
5240 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5242 if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5244 =item 'X' outside of string
5246 (F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5247 the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5249 =item 'x' outside of string in unpack
5251 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5252 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5254 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5256 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
5257 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
5258 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
5261 =item You need to quote "%s"
5263 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5264 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5265 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5266 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5267 what you want, put an & in front.)
5269 =item Your random numbers are not that random
5271 (F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5272 not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5273 Something Very Wrong.
5279 L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>.