3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and
116 transliteration (tr///) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
141 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
143 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
149 or a hash or array slice, such as:
151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
154 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
156 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
157 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
162 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
166 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
168 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
169 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
171 =item assertion botched: %s
173 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
175 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
177 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
179 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
181 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
182 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
183 know which context to supply to the right side.
185 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
187 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
188 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
189 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
195 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
197 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
198 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
201 bless $self, "$proto";
203 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
205 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
206 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
207 outside any of those arenas.
209 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
211 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
212 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
213 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
214 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
216 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
218 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
219 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
220 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
221 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
224 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
226 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
228 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
230 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
231 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
232 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
233 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
234 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
235 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
238 =item Attempt to join self
240 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
241 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
242 to move the join() to some other thread.
244 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
246 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
247 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
248 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
249 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
250 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
253 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
255 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
256 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
257 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
259 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
261 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
262 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
263 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
264 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
266 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
268 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
269 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
270 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
272 =item Bad filehandle: %s
274 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
275 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
276 open(), or did it in another package.
278 =item Bad free() ignored
280 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
281 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
282 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
284 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
285 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
286 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
290 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
292 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
294 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
295 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
298 =item Badly placed ()'s
300 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
301 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
304 =item Bad name after %s::
306 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
307 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
316 $sym = "mypack::$var";
318 =item Bad realloc() ignored
320 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
321 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
322 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
324 =item Bad symbol for array
326 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
327 wasn't a symbol table entry.
329 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
331 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
332 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
334 =item Bad symbol for hash
336 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
337 wasn't a symbol table entry.
339 =item Bareword found in conditional
341 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
342 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
343 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
347 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
350 use constant TYPO => 1;
351 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
353 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
355 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
357 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
358 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
359 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
361 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
363 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
364 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
365 you need to predeclare a package?
367 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
369 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
370 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
373 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
375 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
376 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
377 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
378 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
379 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
381 =item \1 better written as $1
383 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
384 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
385 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
386 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
387 there are more than 9 backreferences.
389 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
391 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
392 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
393 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
395 =item bind() on closed socket %s
397 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
398 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
400 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
402 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
404 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
406 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
409 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
411 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
412 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
414 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
416 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
417 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
418 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
420 =item Callback called exit
422 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
423 exited by calling exit.
425 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
427 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
428 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
429 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
430 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
431 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
432 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
433 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
434 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
436 =item / cannot take a count
438 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
439 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
442 =item Can't bless non-reference value
444 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
445 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
447 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
449 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
450 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
451 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
453 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
455 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
456 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
457 like this will reproduce the error:
460 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
461 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
463 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
465 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
466 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
467 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
468 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
470 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
472 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
473 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
474 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
475 Something like this will reproduce the error:
478 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
479 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
481 =item Can't chdir to %s
483 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
484 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
486 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
488 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
491 =item Can't coerce array into hash
493 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
494 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
495 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
497 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
499 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
500 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
510 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
512 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
514 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
515 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
517 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
519 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
520 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
522 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
524 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
525 quotas or other plumbing problems.
527 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
529 (S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
530 qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
531 for other types of variables in future.
533 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
535 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
536 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
538 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
540 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
541 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
543 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
545 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
548 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
550 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
551 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
552 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
554 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
556 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
557 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
558 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
560 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m before << HERE in regex m/%s/
562 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
563 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The << HERE shows in the
564 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
566 =item Can't do setegid!
568 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
571 =item Can't do seteuid!
573 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
575 =item Can't do setuid
577 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
578 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
579 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
580 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
581 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
582 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
584 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
586 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
587 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
589 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
591 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
592 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
595 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
597 (W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
598 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
599 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
600 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
601 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
602 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
607 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
608 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
609 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
611 =item Can't execute %s
613 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
614 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
616 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
618 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
619 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
621 =item Can't find label %s
623 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
624 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
626 =item Can't find %s on PATH
628 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
631 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
633 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
634 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
635 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
637 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
639 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
640 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
641 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
643 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
645 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
646 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
647 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
651 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
654 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
656 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
657 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
658 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
659 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
660 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
661 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
662 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
663 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
664 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
665 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
666 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
667 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
668 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
669 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
670 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
672 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
674 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
675 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
677 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
679 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
680 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
682 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
684 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
685 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
687 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
689 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
690 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
691 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
692 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
694 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
696 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
697 "string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
698 probably don't want to.)
700 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
702 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
703 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
704 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
705 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
707 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
709 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
710 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
711 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
712 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
713 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
714 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
716 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
718 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
719 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
720 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
721 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
722 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
723 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
726 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
728 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
729 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
730 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
733 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
735 (F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
736 reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
737 can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
738 directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
740 =item Can't localize through a reference
742 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
743 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
744 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
745 that $ref will still be a reference.
747 =item Can't locate %s
749 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
750 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
751 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
752 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
753 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
754 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
755 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
757 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
759 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
760 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
761 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
762 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
764 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
766 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
767 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
768 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
770 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
772 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
773 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
774 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
776 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
778 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
779 doesn't seem to exist.
781 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
783 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
786 =item Can't modify %s in %s
788 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
789 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
791 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
793 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
796 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
798 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
799 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
801 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
803 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
806 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
808 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
809 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
810 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
811 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
812 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
813 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
815 =item Can't open %s: %s
817 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
818 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
819 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
820 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
823 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
825 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
826 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
827 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
828 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
830 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
832 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
833 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
834 the command line for writing.
836 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
838 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
839 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
840 command line for reading.
842 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
844 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
845 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
846 the command line for writing.
848 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
850 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
851 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
854 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
856 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
858 =item Can't read CRTL environ
860 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
861 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
862 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
863 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
866 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
868 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
869 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
870 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
871 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
873 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
875 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
876 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
877 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
878 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
879 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
880 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
882 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
884 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
885 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
886 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
888 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
890 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
891 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
893 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
895 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
896 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
898 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
900 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
901 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
902 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
904 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
906 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
909 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
911 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
912 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
915 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
917 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
918 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
920 =item Can't stat script "%s"
922 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
923 open already. Bizarre.
925 =item Can't swap uid and euid
927 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
930 =item Can't take log of %g
932 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
933 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
934 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
937 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
939 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
940 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
941 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
943 =item Can't undef active subroutine
945 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
946 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
947 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
951 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
952 as the main Perl stack.
954 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
956 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
957 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
958 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
959 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
961 =item Can't upgrade to undef
963 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
964 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
967 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
969 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
970 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
972 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
974 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
975 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
977 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
979 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
980 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
981 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
983 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
985 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
988 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
990 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
991 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
992 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
993 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
996 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
998 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
999 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1000 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1001 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1004 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1006 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1007 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1008 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1010 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1012 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1013 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1015 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1017 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1018 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1019 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1021 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1023 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1024 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1025 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1026 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1027 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1030 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1032 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1033 references can be weakened.
1035 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1037 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1038 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1039 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1041 =item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
1043 (W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
1045 chmod 777, $filename
1047 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1048 equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1051 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1053 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1055 =item %s: Command not found
1057 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1058 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1060 =item Compilation failed in require
1062 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1063 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1064 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1066 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1068 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1069 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1070 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1071 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1072 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1073 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1074 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1075 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1076 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1078 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1080 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1081 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1082 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1084 =item constant(%s): %s
1086 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1087 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1088 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1089 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1092 =item Constant is not %s reference
1094 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1095 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1096 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1097 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1098 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1100 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1102 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1103 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1104 commentary and workarounds.
1106 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1108 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1109 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1112 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1114 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy
1117 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1119 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1121 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1123 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1124 expression compiler gave it.
1126 =item corrupted regexp program
1128 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1131 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1133 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1135 =item C<-p> destination: %s
1137 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1138 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1139 redirected it with select().)
1141 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1143 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1144 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1146 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1148 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1149 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1150 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1151 which case it indicates something else.
1153 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1155 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1156 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1157 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1159 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1161 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1162 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1163 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1165 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1167 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1168 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1169 that triggers this error.
1171 =item Did not produce a valid header
1175 =item %s did not return a true value
1177 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1178 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1179 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1180 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1182 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1184 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1187 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1189 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1190 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1193 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1195 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1196 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1201 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1202 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1204 =item Document contains no data
1208 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1210 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1212 =item do_study: out of memory
1214 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1216 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1218 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1219 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1220 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1221 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1222 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1223 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1224 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1225 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1227 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1229 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1232 =item elseif should be elsif
1234 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1235 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1236 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1237 unlikely to be what you want.
1239 =item entering effective %s failed
1241 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1242 effective uids or gids failed.
1244 =item Error converting file specification %s
1246 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1247 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1248 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1249 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1250 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1252 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1254 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1255 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1256 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1258 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1260 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1261 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1262 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1263 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1264 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1265 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1267 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1269 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1270 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1271 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1273 =item Excessively long <> operator
1275 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1276 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1277 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1278 variable and glob that.
1280 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1282 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1284 =item Exiting eval via %s
1286 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1287 goto, or a loop control statement.
1289 =item Exiting format via %s
1291 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1292 goto, or a loop control statement.
1294 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1296 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1297 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1298 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1300 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1302 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1303 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1305 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1307 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1308 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1310 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1312 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1313 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1314 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1315 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1317 =item %s: Expression syntax
1319 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1320 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1322 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1324 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1325 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1326 routines has been prematurely ended.
1328 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1330 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1331 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The
1332 "-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider
1333 quoting the "-", "\-". See L<perlre>.
1335 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1337 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1338 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1339 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1340 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1342 =item fcntl is not implemented
1344 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1345 PDP-11 or something?
1347 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1349 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1350 to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1351 or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1352 the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1354 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1356 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1357 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1358 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1359 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1361 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1363 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1364 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1365 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1368 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1370 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1371 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1372 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1375 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1377 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1378 some time before now. Check your logic flow. flock() operates on
1379 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1382 =item Quantifier follows nothing before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1384 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
1385 meant it literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1386 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1388 =item Format not terminated
1390 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1391 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1393 =item Format %s redefined
1395 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1399 eval "format NAME =...";
1402 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1412 (or something like that).
1414 =item %s found where operator expected
1416 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1417 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1418 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1419 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1421 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1423 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1425 =item gethostent not implemented
1427 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1428 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1431 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1433 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1434 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1436 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1438 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1439 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1441 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1443 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1444 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1445 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1447 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1449 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1450 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1451 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1454 =item glob failed (%s)
1456 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1457 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1458 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1459 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1460 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1461 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1462 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1463 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1464 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1465 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1466 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1468 =item Glob not terminated
1470 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1471 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1472 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1473 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1475 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1477 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1478 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1480 =item goto must have label
1482 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1483 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1485 =item %s had compilation errors
1487 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1489 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1491 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1492 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1493 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1495 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1497 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1498 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1500 =item %s has too many errors
1502 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1503 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1505 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1507 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1508 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1509 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1511 =item Identifier too long
1513 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1514 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1515 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1516 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1518 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1520 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1522 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1524 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1525 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1528 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1530 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1531 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1532 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1533 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1534 to your Perl administrator.
1536 =item Illegal division by zero
1538 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1539 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1542 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1544 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1545 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1546 number stopped before the illegal character.
1548 =item Illegal modulus zero
1550 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1551 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1553 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1555 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1556 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1558 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1560 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1562 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1564 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1565 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1567 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1569 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1570 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1572 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1574 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1575 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1576 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1578 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1580 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1581 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1582 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1585 =item (in cleanup) %s
1587 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1588 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1589 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1590 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1591 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1593 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1594 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1596 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1598 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1599 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1600 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1601 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1602 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1603 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1604 L<perlsec> for more information.
1606 =item Insecure directory in %s
1608 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1609 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1610 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1612 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1614 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1615 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1616 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1617 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1618 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1620 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1622 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1623 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1624 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1625 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1626 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1627 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1628 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1629 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1632 =item Internal disaster before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1634 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1635 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1639 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1641 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1642 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1643 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1644 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1645 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1646 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1648 =item Internal urp before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1650 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The <<<HERE
1651 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1654 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1656 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1657 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1658 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms
1659 and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1661 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1663 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1664 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1666 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1668 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1669 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1671 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1673 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1674 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1676 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1678 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1679 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1681 =item invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1683 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1684 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1686 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1688 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1689 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1690 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1693 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1695 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1696 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1699 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1701 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1703 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1706 =item ioctl is not implemented
1708 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1709 strange for a machine that supports C.
1711 =item junk on end of regexp
1713 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1715 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1717 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1718 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1721 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1723 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1724 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1727 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1729 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1730 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1733 =item leaving effective %s failed
1735 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1736 effective uids or gids failed.
1738 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1740 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1741 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1744 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1746 (W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1747 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1748 instead on the filehandle.)
1750 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1752 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1753 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1754 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1756 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented before << HERE in reges m/%s/
1758 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
1759 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The << HERE shows in
1760 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1762 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1764 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1772 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1773 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1774 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1775 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1777 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1779 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1780 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1782 =item %s matches null string many times
1784 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1785 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See
1788 =item % may only be used in unpack
1790 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
1791 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1792 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1794 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1796 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1797 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1799 =item Method %s not permitted
1803 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1805 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1806 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1807 ended earlier on the current line.
1809 =item Misplaced _ in number
1811 (W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1813 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1815 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1816 double-quotish context.
1818 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1820 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1821 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1823 =item Missing command in piped open
1825 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1826 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1829 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1831 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1832 they have a name with which they can be found.
1834 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1836 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1837 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1838 can vary from one line to the next.
1840 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
1842 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1843 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1845 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1847 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1848 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1851 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1853 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1854 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1855 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1857 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1859 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1860 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1861 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1863 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1866 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1868 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
1869 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
1872 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
1873 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
1876 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
1878 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1879 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1882 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
1884 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1885 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
1887 =item Module name must be constant
1889 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1891 =item Module name required with -%c option
1893 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1894 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1895 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
1897 =item msg%s not implemented
1899 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1901 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1903 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
1904 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1906 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
1908 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
1909 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
1910 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1912 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1914 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
1915 must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
1916 of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1918 =item / must follow a numeric type
1920 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
1921 follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1923 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
1925 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
1928 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
1930 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
1931 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
1932 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
1934 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1936 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1937 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1938 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1939 provided for this purpose.
1941 =item Negative length
1943 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
1944 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1946 =item Nested quantifiers before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1948 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1949 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The << HERE shows in the regular
1950 expression about where the problem was discovered.
1952 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
1953 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1956 =item %s never introduced
1958 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
1959 scope before it could possibly have been used.
1961 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1963 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
1964 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
1965 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
1966 securable. See L<perlsec>.
1968 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1970 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1972 =item No comma allowed after %s
1974 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1975 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1976 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1978 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1979 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1980 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1981 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1982 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1983 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1984 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1985 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1986 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1987 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1988 this error was triggered?
1990 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1992 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
1993 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
1994 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
1996 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1998 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
1999 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2000 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2001 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2002 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2004 =item No dbm on this machine
2006 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2007 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2009 =item No DBsub routine
2011 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2012 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2013 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2014 ordinary subroutine call.
2016 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2018 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2019 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2020 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2022 =item No input file after < on command line
2024 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2025 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2026 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2030 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2031 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2033 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2035 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2036 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2038 =item No output file after > on command line
2040 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2041 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2042 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2044 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2046 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2047 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2048 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2050 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2052 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2053 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2054 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2056 =item No Perl script found in input
2058 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2059 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2061 =item No setregid available
2063 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2066 =item No setreuid available
2068 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2071 =item No space allowed after -%c
2073 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2074 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2076 =item No %s specified for -%c
2078 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2079 you haven't specified one.
2081 =item No such pipe open
2083 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2084 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2085 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2087 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2089 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2090 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2091 array indices for that to work.
2093 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2095 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2096 not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2097 %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2098 %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2100 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2102 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2103 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2104 names on your system.
2106 =item Not a CODE reference
2108 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2109 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2110 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2113 =item Not a format reference
2115 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2116 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2118 =item Not a GLOB reference
2120 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2121 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2122 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2123 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2125 =item Not a HASH reference
2127 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2128 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2129 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2131 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2133 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2134 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2135 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2137 =item Not a perl script
2139 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2140 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2143 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2145 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2146 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2147 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2149 =item Not a subroutine reference
2151 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2152 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2153 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2156 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2158 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2159 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2161 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2163 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2165 =item Not enough format arguments
2167 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2168 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2172 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2173 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2176 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2178 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2179 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2180 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2181 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2182 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2184 =item Null filename used
2186 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2187 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2189 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2191 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2194 =item Null picture in formline
2196 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2197 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2198 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2202 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2204 =item NULL regexp argument
2206 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2208 =item NULL regexp parameter
2210 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2212 =item Number too long
2214 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2215 about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2216 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2217 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2220 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2222 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2223 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2226 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2228 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2229 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2230 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2232 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2234 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2236 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2237 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2239 =item Offset outside string
2241 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2242 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2243 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2244 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2246 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2248 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2249 that isn't open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2251 =item %s() on unopened %s %s
2253 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2254 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2255 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2259 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2263 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2265 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2267 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2268 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2269 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2270 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2272 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2274 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2275 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2276 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2277 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2280 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2282 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2283 in the current lexical scope.
2285 =item Out of memory!
2287 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2288 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2289 no option but to exit immediately.
2291 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2293 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2294 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2295 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2296 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2298 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2300 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2301 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2304 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2305 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2306 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2307 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2308 is trappable I<once>.
2310 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2312 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2313 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2314 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2316 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2318 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2319 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2322 =item @ outside of string
2324 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2325 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2327 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2329 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2330 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2331 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2332 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2336 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2337 page. See L<perlform>.
2341 (P) An internal error.
2343 =item panic: ck_grep
2345 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2347 =item panic: ck_split
2349 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2351 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2353 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2354 there are in the savestack.
2356 =item panic: del_backref
2358 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2363 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2364 it wasn't an eval context.
2366 =item panic: do_match
2368 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2371 =item panic: do_split
2373 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2375 =item panic: do_subst
2377 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2380 =item panic: do_trans
2382 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational
2387 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2391 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2392 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2394 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2396 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2398 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2400 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2402 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2404 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2408 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2409 it wasn't a block context.
2411 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2413 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2416 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2418 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2419 invalid enum on the top of it.
2421 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2423 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2424 references to an object.
2428 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2430 =item panic: mapstart
2432 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2434 =item panic: null array
2436 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2438 =item panic: pad_alloc
2440 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2441 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2443 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2445 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2446 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2448 =item panic: pad_free po
2450 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2452 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2454 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2455 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2457 =item panic: pad_sv po
2459 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2461 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2463 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2464 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2466 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2468 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2470 =item panic: pp_iter
2472 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2474 =item panic: realloc
2476 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2478 =item panic: restartop
2480 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2481 didn't supply the destination.
2485 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2486 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2488 =item panic: scan_num
2490 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2492 =item panic: sv_insert
2494 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2497 =item panic: top_env
2499 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2503 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2505 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2507 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2508 to even) byte length.
2510 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2512 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2518 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2520 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2522 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2524 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2525 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2526 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2528 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2530 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2531 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2533 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2535 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2537 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2538 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2541 are supported and installed on your system.
2542 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2544 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2545 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2546 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
2547 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
2548 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
2549 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the script
2550 will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you will get
2551 the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really fix the
2552 problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2554 =item Permission denied
2556 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2558 =item pid %x not a child
2560 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2561 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2562 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2564 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
2566 (W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2567 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for
2568 example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not
2569 currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future
2570 extensions and will cause fatal errors.
2572 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
2574 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2575 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future
2576 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2577 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2578 with the backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
2580 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
2582 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2583 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future
2584 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2585 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2586 with the backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
2588 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown
2590 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. See
2593 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2595 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2596 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2598 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2600 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2601 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2602 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2603 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2605 You probably wrote something like this:
2612 when you should have written this:
2619 If you really want comments, build your list the
2620 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2624 'b', # another comment
2627 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2629 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2630 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2631 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2634 You probably wrote something like this:
2638 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2639 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2643 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2645 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2646 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2647 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2648 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2650 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2652 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2653 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2655 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2657 (W deprecated) You have written something like this:
2661 use attrs qw(locked);
2664 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2670 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2671 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2673 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2675 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2679 is now misinterpreted as
2683 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2684 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2685 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2688 =item Premature end of script headers
2692 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2694 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2695 before now. Check your logic flow.
2697 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2699 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2700 before now. Check your logic flow.
2702 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2704 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2705 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2706 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2707 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
2710 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2712 (S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2713 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
2715 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2717 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
2718 {min,max} construct. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
2719 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2721 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2723 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2724 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2725 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2726 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2727 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2729 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2731 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2732 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2733 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2734 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2736 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2738 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2739 before now. Check your logic flow.
2741 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2743 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2745 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2747 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2750 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2752 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2753 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2754 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2756 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2758 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2759 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2761 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
2763 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2764 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2767 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2769 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2770 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2771 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2772 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2774 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2775 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2776 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2777 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2779 =item Reference is already weak
2781 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2782 Doing so has no effect.
2784 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2786 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2787 a reference count of other than 1.
2789 =item Reference to nonexistant group before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2791 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
2792 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
2793 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
2794 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
2796 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2799 =item regexp memory corruption
2801 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2802 expression compiler gave it.
2804 =item Regexp out of space
2806 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2809 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
2811 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2812 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2814 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2816 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2817 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2819 =item Reversed %s= operator
2821 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2822 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2824 =item Runaway format
2826 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2827 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2828 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2829 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2830 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2832 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2834 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2835 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2836 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2837 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2838 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2839 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2840 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2842 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2843 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2844 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2847 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2849 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
2850 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
2851 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
2852 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2853 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2854 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2855 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2857 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
2858 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
2859 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2862 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2864 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2865 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2867 =item Search pattern not terminated
2869 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2870 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2871 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2873 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
2875 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
2876 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2878 =item select not implemented
2880 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2882 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2884 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
2885 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2887 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2889 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
2890 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
2892 =item sem%s not implemented
2894 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2896 =item send() on closed socket %s
2898 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
2899 before now. Check your logic flow.
2901 =item Sequence (? incomplete before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
2903 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <<<HERE
2904 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
2907 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex m/%s/
2909 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
2910 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. See L<perlre>.
2912 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
2914 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
2915 has not yet been written. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
2916 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2918 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
2920 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2921 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
2922 where the problem was discovered.
2925 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
2927 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2928 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2930 =item 500 Server error
2936 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
2937 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
2938 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
2939 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
2940 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
2941 produce a valid header".
2943 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2945 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
2946 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
2947 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
2948 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
2949 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
2950 Please see the following for more information:
2952 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2953 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2954 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2955 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2956 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2958 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2960 =item setegid() not implemented
2962 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
2963 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2966 =item seteuid() not implemented
2968 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
2969 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2972 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
2974 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
2975 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
2978 =item setrgid() not implemented
2980 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
2981 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2984 =item setruid() not implemented
2986 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
2987 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2990 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
2992 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2993 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2994 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
2996 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2998 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
2999 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3001 =item shm%s not implemented
3003 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3005 =item <> should be quotes
3007 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3010 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3012 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3013 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3014 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3015 probably not what you had in mind.
3017 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3019 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3022 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3024 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3025 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3027 =item sort is now a reserved word
3029 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3030 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3032 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3034 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3035 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3036 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3038 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3040 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3041 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3045 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3046 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3047 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3049 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3051 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3052 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3053 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3054 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3057 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3059 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3060 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3062 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3064 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3065 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3066 C<can> may break this.
3068 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3070 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3074 eval "sub name { ... }";
3077 =item Substitution loop
3079 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3080 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3081 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3082 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3084 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3086 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3087 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3088 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3090 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3092 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3093 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3094 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3096 =item substr outside of string
3098 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3099 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3100 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3101 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3102 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3104 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3106 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3107 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3109 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3111 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3112 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3113 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3114 clustering parentheses:
3116 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3118 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3119 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3121 =item Switch condition not recognized before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3123 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3124 number, it can be only a number. The << HERE shows in the regular expression
3125 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3127 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3129 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3130 and effective uids or gids.
3134 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3136 A keyword is misspelled.
3137 A semicolon is missing.
3139 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3140 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3141 A closing quote is missing.
3143 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3144 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3145 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3146 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3147 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3148 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3149 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3150 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3151 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3154 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3156 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3157 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3162 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3164 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3166 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3167 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3168 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3169 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3171 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3173 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3174 before now. Check your logic flow.
3176 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3178 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3179 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3181 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3183 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3184 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3186 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3188 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3189 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3198 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3199 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3201 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3203 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3204 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3205 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3206 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3209 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3211 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3212 to the probings of Configure.
3214 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
3216 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3217 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3218 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3221 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3223 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3225 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3226 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3227 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3228 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3229 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3230 target of the change to
3231 %ENV which produced the warning.
3233 =item times not implemented
3235 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3236 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3238 =item Too few args to syscall
3240 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3241 system call to call, silly dilly.
3243 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3245 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3246 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3247 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3248 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3251 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3252 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3253 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3254 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3256 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3257 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3259 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3261 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3262 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3263 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3265 =item Too late to run %s block
3267 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3268 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3269 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3270 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3273 =item Too many args to syscall
3275 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3277 =item Too many arguments for %s
3279 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3283 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3284 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3288 =item trailing \ in regexp
3290 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3291 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3293 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3295 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3296 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3297 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3299 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3301 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3304 =item truncate not implemented
3306 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3307 Configure knows about.
3309 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3311 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3312 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3313 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3314 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3316 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3318 (W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3319 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3321 =item umask not implemented
3323 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3324 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3326 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3328 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3330 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3332 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3333 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3335 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3337 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3338 many values were temporarily localized.
3340 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3342 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3343 many blocks were entered and left.
3345 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3347 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3348 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3350 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3352 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3353 another package? See L<perlform>.
3355 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3357 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3358 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3360 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3362 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3363 since been undefined.
3365 =item Undefined subroutine called
3367 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3368 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3370 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3372 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3373 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3375 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3377 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3378 another package? See L<perlform>.
3380 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3382 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3383 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3386 =item %s: Undefined variable
3388 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3389 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3391 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3393 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3394 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3397 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3399 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3402 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3404 (F) The condition of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct is not
3405 known. The condition may be lookaround (the condition is true if the
3406 lookaround is true), a (?{...}) construct (the condition is true if the
3407 code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the condition is true if the
3408 set of capturing parentheses named by the number is defined).
3410 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3411 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3413 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3415 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3416 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3417 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3419 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3421 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3422 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3423 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3424 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3426 =item unmatched [ before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3428 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3429 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3430 first. See L<perlre>. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
3431 where the escape was discovered.
3433 =item unmatched ( in regexp before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3435 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3436 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3437 matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3439 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3441 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3442 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3443 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3444 you were last editing.
3446 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3448 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3449 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3450 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3453 =item Unrecognized character %s
3455 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3456 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3457 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3459 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3461 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3462 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3463 understood literally.
3465 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through before << HERE in m/%s/
3467 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3468 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
3469 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
3470 literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the escape
3474 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3476 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3479 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3481 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3482 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3485 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3487 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3488 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3489 bad switch on your behalf.)
3491 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3493 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3494 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3495 PROBABLY because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See
3498 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3500 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3502 =item Unsupported function %s
3504 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3505 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3507 =item Unsupported function fork
3509 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3511 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3512 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3513 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3515 =item Unsupported script encoding
3517 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3518 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3520 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3522 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3523 least that's what Configure thought.
3525 =item Unterminated attribute list
3527 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3528 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3529 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3530 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3532 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3534 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3535 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3536 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3537 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3539 =item Unterminated compressed integer
3541 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3542 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3543 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3545 =item Unterminated <> operator
3547 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3548 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3549 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3550 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3552 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3554 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3555 still valid when C<untie> was called.
3557 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3559 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3560 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3561 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3562 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3563 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3564 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3569 when you meant to say
3571 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3573 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3574 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3579 when you should have said
3583 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3584 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3585 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3586 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3587 L<perlref> for more on this.
3589 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3591 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3593 =item "use" not allowed in expression
3595 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3596 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3598 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3600 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
3601 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3603 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3605 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
3606 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
3607 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3609 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3611 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
3612 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
3613 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
3614 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
3617 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
3618 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
3619 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
3620 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
3623 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3624 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
3625 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
3626 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
3629 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
3630 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3631 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3633 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3635 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3636 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3638 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3640 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
3641 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
3642 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
3643 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3645 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3647 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
3648 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
3649 old way has bad side effects.
3651 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3653 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
3654 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3656 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3658 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
3659 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
3660 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
3661 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
3662 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
3663 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3665 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3667 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
3668 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
3669 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3671 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
3672 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
3673 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
3674 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
3675 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
3676 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
3679 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3681 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
3682 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
3683 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
3684 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
3685 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
3686 C<defined> operator.
3688 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3690 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
3691 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
3692 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
3695 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3697 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
3698 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3699 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
3700 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
3701 front of your variable.
3703 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
3705 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
3706 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
3707 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
3708 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
3709 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
3711 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3713 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
3714 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
3715 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
3716 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
3718 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3720 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3721 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
3722 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3723 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
3724 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
3725 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
3727 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
3728 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
3729 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
3730 between interferes with this feature.
3732 =item Variable syntax
3734 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3735 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3738 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3740 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
3741 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3743 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3744 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
3745 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
3746 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
3747 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
3748 variable will no longer be shared.
3750 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3751 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3752 will I<never> share the given variable.
3754 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3755 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3756 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
3757 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
3759 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3761 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
3762 known at compile time. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3763 the problem was discovered.
3765 =item Version number must be a constant number
3767 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3768 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3771 =item Warning: something's wrong
3773 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3774 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3776 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3778 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
3779 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
3782 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3784 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
3785 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
3786 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
3787 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3791 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3795 but in actual fact, you got
3799 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3801 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
3803 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3804 before now. Check your logic flow.
3806 =item X outside of string
3808 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3809 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3811 =item x outside of string
3813 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3814 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3816 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3818 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3821 =item Xsub called in sort
3823 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3826 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3828 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
3829 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3830 Use a filename instead.
3832 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3834 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3835 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3836 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in the
3837 eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3839 =item You need to quote "%s"
3841 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
3842 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
3843 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
3844 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
3845 what you want, put an & in front.)