3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
22 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
23 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
24 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
27 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
28 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
29 The symbols C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
33 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
35 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
36 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
37 if you want to localize a package variable.
39 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
41 (W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
42 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
43 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
44 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
47 =item "no" not allowed in expression
49 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
50 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
52 =item "use" not allowed in expression
54 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
55 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
57 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
62 =item # cannot take a count
64 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
65 but you have also specified an explicit size for the string.
68 =item # must be followed by a, A or Z
70 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
71 which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z
72 to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked.
75 =item # must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
77 (F) You had an pack template indicating a counted-length string,
78 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*.
81 =item # must follow a numeric type
83 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#',
84 but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.
87 =item % may only be used in unpack
89 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
90 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
91 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
93 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
95 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
96 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
98 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
100 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
101 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
103 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
105 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
106 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
107 C<'>-delimited regular expression.
109 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
111 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
112 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
113 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
115 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
117 (W) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a
118 definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call
119 conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype
120 declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine
121 definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively,
122 if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put
123 an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L<perlsub>.
125 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
127 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
130 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
132 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
134 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
137 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
139 or a hash slice, such as
141 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
142 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
144 =item %s did not return a true value
146 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
147 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
148 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
149 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
151 =item %s found where operator expected
153 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
154 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
155 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
156 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
158 =item %s had compilation errors
160 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
162 =item %s has too many errors
164 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
165 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
167 =item %s matches null string many times
169 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
170 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
172 =item %s never introduced
174 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
175 before it could possibly have been used.
179 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
181 =item %s: Command not found
183 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
184 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
187 =item %s: Expression syntax
189 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
190 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
193 =item %s: Undefined variable
195 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
196 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
201 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
202 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
205 =item (in cleanup) %s
207 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
208 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
209 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
210 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
211 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
214 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
215 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
217 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
219 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
220 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
221 the previous line just because you saw this message.
223 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
225 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
226 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
228 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
230 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
231 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
233 =item C<-p> destination: %s
235 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
236 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
237 redirected it with select().)
239 =item 500 Server error
243 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
245 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
246 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
248 =item @ outside of string
250 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
251 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
253 =item <> should be quotes
255 (F) You wrote C<require E<lt>fileE<gt>> when you should have written
258 =item accept() on closed fd
260 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
261 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
263 =item Allocation too large: %lx
265 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
267 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
269 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
270 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
271 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
272 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
273 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
274 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
276 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
278 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
280 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
282 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
283 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
284 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
286 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
288 (W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
289 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
290 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
293 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
294 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
295 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
296 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
298 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
299 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
300 to be an object method (see L<attrs>).
302 =item Args must match #! line
304 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
305 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
306 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
307 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
309 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
311 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
312 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
313 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
315 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
317 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
318 is now heavily deprecated.
320 =item assertion botched: %s
322 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
324 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
326 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
328 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
330 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
331 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
332 know which context to supply to the right side.
334 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
336 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
337 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
340 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
342 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
343 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
344 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
345 that can no longer be found in the table.
347 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
349 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
350 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
351 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
352 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
355 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
357 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
359 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
361 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
362 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
363 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
364 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
365 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
366 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
368 =item Attempt to join self
370 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
371 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
372 need to move the join() to some other thread.
374 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
376 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
377 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
378 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
379 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
380 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
383 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
385 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
386 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
387 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
389 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
391 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
392 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
393 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
394 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
396 =item Bad filehandle: %s
398 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
399 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
400 did it in another package.
402 =item Bad free() ignored
404 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
405 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
406 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
408 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
409 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
410 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
415 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
417 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
419 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
420 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
423 =item Bad name after %s::
425 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
426 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
435 $sym = "mypack::$var";
437 =item Bad symbol for array
439 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
440 wasn't a symbol table entry.
442 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
444 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
445 wasn't a symbol table entry.
447 =item Bad symbol for hash
449 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
450 wasn't a symbol table entry.
452 =item Badly placed ()'s
454 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
455 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
458 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
460 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
461 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
462 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
464 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
466 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
467 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
468 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
470 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
472 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
473 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
475 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
477 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
478 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
479 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
480 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
481 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
483 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
485 (W) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
486 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
487 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
489 =item bind() on closed fd
491 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
492 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
494 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
496 (W) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
498 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
500 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
502 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
504 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
505 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
506 so it was truncated to the string shown.
508 =item Callback called exit
510 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
511 exited by calling exit.
513 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
515 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
516 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
517 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
518 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
520 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
522 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
523 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
525 =item Can't "last" outside a block
527 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
528 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
529 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
530 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
531 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
532 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
534 =item Can't "next" outside a block
536 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
537 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
538 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
539 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
540 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
542 =item Can't read CRTL environ
544 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
545 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
546 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
547 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
549 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
551 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
552 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
553 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
554 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
555 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
557 =item Can't bless non-reference value
559 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
560 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
562 =item Can't break at that line
564 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
565 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
568 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
570 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
571 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
572 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
574 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
576 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
577 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
578 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
579 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
581 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
583 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
584 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
585 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
586 Something like this will reproduce the error:
589 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
590 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
592 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
594 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
595 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
596 Something like this will reproduce the error:
599 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
600 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
602 =item Can't chdir to %s
604 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
605 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
607 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s"
609 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
611 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
613 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
614 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
624 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
626 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
628 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
629 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
631 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
633 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
634 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
636 =item Can't coerce array into hash
638 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
639 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
640 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
642 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
644 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
645 or other plumbing problems.
647 =item Can't declare %s in my
649 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
650 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
652 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
654 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
656 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
658 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
659 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
662 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
664 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
666 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
668 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
669 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
671 =item Can't do setegid!
673 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
676 =item Can't do seteuid!
678 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
680 =item Can't do setuid
682 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
683 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
684 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
685 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
686 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
687 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
689 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
691 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
692 without flags is emulated.
694 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
696 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
697 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
699 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
701 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
702 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
704 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
706 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
707 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
708 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
709 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
710 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
711 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
715 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
716 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
717 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
719 =item Can't execute %s
721 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
722 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
724 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
726 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
727 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
728 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
730 =item Can't find %s on PATH
732 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
735 =item Can't find label %s
737 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
738 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
740 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
742 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
743 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
744 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
746 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
748 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
749 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
750 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
754 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
756 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
758 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
759 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
760 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
761 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
762 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
763 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
764 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
765 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
766 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
767 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
768 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
769 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
770 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
771 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
773 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
775 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
776 can't retrieve its name for later use.
778 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
780 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
781 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
783 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
785 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
786 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
787 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
790 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
792 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
793 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
795 =item Can't localize through a reference
797 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
798 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
799 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
800 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
802 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
804 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
805 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
806 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
809 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
811 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
812 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
813 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
814 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
816 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
818 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
819 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
820 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
821 doing C<make install>.
823 =item Can't locate %s
825 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
826 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
827 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
828 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra
829 library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or
830 maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>
833 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
835 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
836 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
837 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
839 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
841 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
844 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
846 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
848 =item Can't modify %s in %s
850 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
851 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
853 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
855 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
858 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
860 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
863 =item Can't open %s: %s
865 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
866 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
867 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
868 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
871 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
873 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
874 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
875 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
876 and then read it in under a different file handle.
878 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
880 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
881 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
882 command line for writing.
884 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
886 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
887 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
889 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
891 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
892 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
895 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
897 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
898 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
900 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
902 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
904 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
906 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
907 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
908 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
909 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
911 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
913 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
914 you don't have write permission to the directory.
916 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
918 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
919 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
921 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
923 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
926 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
928 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
929 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
931 =item Can't stat script "%s"
933 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
934 it open already. Bizarre.
936 =item Can't swap uid and euid
938 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
941 =item Can't take log of %g
943 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
944 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
945 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
946 the negative numbers.
948 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
950 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
951 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
952 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
954 =item Can't undef active subroutine
956 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
957 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
958 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
962 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
963 as the main Perl stack.
965 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
967 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
968 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
969 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
970 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
972 =item Can't upgrade to undef
974 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
975 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
976 code calling sv_upgrade.
978 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
980 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
981 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
982 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
984 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
986 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
987 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
988 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
989 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
992 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
994 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
995 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
996 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
998 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1000 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
1002 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1004 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1005 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1006 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1008 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
1010 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
1011 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
1012 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
1013 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
1014 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
1016 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
1018 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1019 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1021 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1023 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1024 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1026 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1028 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1029 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1031 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1033 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
1034 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
1035 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
1036 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1039 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1041 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1042 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1043 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1045 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1047 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1048 references can be weakened.
1050 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1052 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
1053 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1054 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1056 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
1058 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
1059 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
1061 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1063 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1064 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1065 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1067 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1069 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
1071 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1073 (W) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1074 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
1075 for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that the last two constructs
1076 are not currently implemented, they are placeholders for future extensions.
1078 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1080 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
1081 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
1082 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1083 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1084 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1086 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1088 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1089 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
1090 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1091 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1092 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1094 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
1096 (W) A novice will sometimes say
1098 chmod 777, $filename
1100 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1101 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1103 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1105 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1107 =item Compilation failed in require
1109 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1110 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1111 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1113 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1115 (W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1116 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1117 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1118 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1119 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1120 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1121 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1122 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1123 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1125 =item connect() on closed fd
1127 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1128 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1130 =item Constant is not %s reference
1132 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1133 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1134 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1135 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1136 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1138 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1140 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1141 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1144 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1146 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1147 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1150 =item constant(%s): %%^H is not localized
1152 (F) When setting compile-time-lexicalized hash %^H one should set the
1153 corresponding bit of $^H as well.
1155 =item constant(%s): %s
1157 (F) Compile-time-substitutions (such as overloaded constants and
1158 character names) were not correctly set up.
1160 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1162 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1164 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1166 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1168 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1170 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1171 expression compiler gave it.
1173 =item corrupted regexp program
1175 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1176 a valid magic number.
1178 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1180 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1181 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1182 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1183 case it indicates something else.
1185 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1187 (D) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
1188 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
1189 just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1191 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1193 (D) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
1194 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
1195 just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1197 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1199 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1200 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1201 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1203 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1205 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1207 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1209 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1210 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1214 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1215 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1217 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1219 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1220 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1221 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1222 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1223 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1224 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1225 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1226 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1229 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1231 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1233 =item do_study: out of memory
1235 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1237 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1239 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1242 =item elseif should be elsif
1244 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1245 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1246 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1247 unlikely to be what you want.
1249 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
1251 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1252 The interpreter is immediately exited.
1254 =item entering effective %s failed
1256 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1257 effective uids or gids failed.
1259 =item Error converting file specification %s
1261 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1262 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1263 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1264 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1265 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1267 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1269 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1270 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1271 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1273 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1275 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1276 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1277 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1279 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1281 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1282 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1283 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1284 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1285 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1286 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1288 =item Excessively long <> operator
1290 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1291 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1292 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1293 variable and glob that.
1295 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1297 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1299 =item Exiting eval via %s
1301 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1302 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1304 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1306 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1307 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1308 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1310 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1312 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1313 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1315 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1317 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1318 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1320 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1322 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1323 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1324 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1325 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1327 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1329 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1330 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1331 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1332 the Perl source code is distressed.
1334 =item fcntl is not implemented
1336 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1337 PDP-11 or something?
1339 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1341 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1342 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1343 the FileHandle package.
1345 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1347 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1348 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1349 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1350 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1353 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1355 (W) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
1356 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1357 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1358 you intended only to read from the file, use "E<lt>". See
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
1365 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
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
1372 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1375 =item Format %s redefined
1377 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1381 eval "format NAME =...";
1384 =item Format not terminated
1386 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1387 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1389 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1399 (or something like that).
1401 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1403 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1405 =item gethostent not implemented
1407 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1408 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1411 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1413 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1414 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1416 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1418 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1419 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1421 =item Glob not terminated
1423 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1424 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1425 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1426 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1428 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1430 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1431 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1432 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1434 =item goto must have label
1436 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1437 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1439 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1441 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1442 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1443 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1445 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1447 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1448 is now heavily deprecated.
1450 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1452 (W) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1453 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1454 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1456 =item Identifier too long
1458 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1459 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1460 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1461 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1463 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1465 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1466 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1467 used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1469 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1471 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1472 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1473 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1476 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1478 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1479 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1480 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1482 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1483 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1484 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1485 properly converting the text file format.
1487 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1488 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1489 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1491 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1492 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1495 =item Illegal division by zero
1497 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1498 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1500 =item Illegal modulus zero
1502 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1503 don't take to this kindly.
1505 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1507 (F) You used a digit other than 0 and 1 in a binary number.
1509 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1511 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1513 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1515 (W) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1516 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1518 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1520 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1521 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1523 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1525 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f
1526 in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1527 before the illegal character.
1529 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1531 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1532 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1534 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1536 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1537 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1539 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1541 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1542 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1543 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1544 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1545 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1546 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1547 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1549 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1551 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1552 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1553 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1554 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1555 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1556 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1557 for more information.
1559 =item Insecure directory in %s
1561 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1562 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1565 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1567 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1568 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1569 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1570 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1571 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1573 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1575 (W) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either
1576 as a literal in your code or as a scalar is too big for your
1577 architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a
1578 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1579 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1580 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1581 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1582 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1585 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1587 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1588 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1589 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1590 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1591 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1592 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1593 and execute the specified command.
1595 =item internal disaster in regexp
1597 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1599 =item glob failed (%s)
1601 (W) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1602 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1603 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1604 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1605 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1606 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1607 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1608 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1609 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1610 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1613 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1615 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1617 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1619 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1620 greater than the maximum character, or the range didn't start/end with
1621 a literal character. See L<perlre>.
1623 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1625 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1626 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1628 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1630 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1631 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1634 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1636 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1637 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1640 =item ioctl is not implemented
1642 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1643 strange for a machine that supports C.
1645 =item junk on end of regexp
1647 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1649 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1651 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1652 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1653 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1655 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1657 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1658 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1661 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1663 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1664 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1667 =item leaving effective %s failed
1669 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1670 effective uids or gids failed.
1672 =item listen() on closed fd
1674 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1675 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1677 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1679 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1680 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1682 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1684 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1685 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1686 ended earlier on the current line.
1688 =item Misplaced _ in number
1690 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1692 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1694 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1695 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1696 one line to the next.
1698 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \C{}
1700 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\C{charname}> within
1701 double-quotish context.
1703 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1705 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1706 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1708 =item Missing command in piped open
1710 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1711 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1713 =item Missing operator before %s?
1715 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1716 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1718 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1720 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than
1721 closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place
1722 you were last editing.
1724 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1726 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1727 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1728 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1730 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1733 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1735 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1737 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1738 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1741 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1743 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1744 be created for some peculiar reason.
1746 =item Module name must be constant
1748 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1750 =item msg%s not implemented
1752 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1754 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1756 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1757 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1759 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1761 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1762 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1763 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
1764 provided for just this purpose.
1766 =item Negative length
1768 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1769 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1771 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1773 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1774 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1776 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1777 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1781 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1782 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1784 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1786 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1787 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1788 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1791 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1793 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1795 =item No comma allowed after %s
1797 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1798 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1799 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1801 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1802 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1803 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1804 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1805 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1806 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1807 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1808 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1809 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1810 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1811 this error was triggered?
1813 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1815 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1816 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1817 want to pipe the output from this command.
1819 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1821 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1822 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1823 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1824 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1825 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1828 =item No dbm on this machine
1830 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1831 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1833 =item No DBsub routine
1835 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1836 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1837 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1838 ordinary subroutine call.
1840 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1842 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1843 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1844 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1846 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1848 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1849 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1850 from which to read data for stdin.
1852 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1854 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1855 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1856 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1858 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1860 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1861 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1862 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1864 =item No Perl script found in input
1866 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1867 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1869 =item No setregid available
1871 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1874 =item No setreuid available
1876 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1879 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1881 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1884 =item No such array field
1886 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
1887 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
1888 array indices for that to work.
1890 =item No such field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
1892 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
1893 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
1894 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
1895 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
1897 =item No such pipe open
1899 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1900 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1901 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1903 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1905 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1906 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1908 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
1910 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
1911 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
1912 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
1913 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
1916 =item Not a CODE reference
1918 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1919 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1920 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1921 See also L<perlref>.
1923 =item Not a format reference
1925 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1926 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1928 =item Not a GLOB reference
1930 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1931 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1932 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1933 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1935 =item Not a HASH reference
1937 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1938 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1939 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1941 =item Not a perl script
1943 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1944 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1947 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1949 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1950 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1951 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1953 =item Not a subroutine reference
1955 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1956 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1957 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1958 See also L<perlref>.
1960 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1962 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1963 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1965 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1967 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1968 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1969 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1971 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1973 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1975 =item Not enough format arguments
1977 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1980 =item Null filename used
1982 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1983 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1985 =item Null picture in formline
1987 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1988 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1989 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1991 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1993 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1997 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1999 =item NULL regexp argument
2001 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2003 =item NULL regexp parameter
2005 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2007 =item Number too long
2009 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
2010 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
2011 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
2012 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
2014 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2016 (W) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295)
2017 and therefore non-portable between systems. See L<perlport> for more
2018 on portability concerns.
2020 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2022 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2024 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
2025 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2027 =item Offset outside string
2029 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2030 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
2031 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
2032 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2036 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2040 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2042 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2044 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
2045 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
2046 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
2047 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
2048 true. See L<overload>.
2050 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2052 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
2053 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
2054 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
2055 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
2056 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
2058 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2060 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
2061 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
2063 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2065 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2066 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
2068 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2069 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2070 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
2071 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
2072 error is trappable I<once>.
2074 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2076 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2077 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2078 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
2079 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2081 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2083 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2084 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
2085 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2089 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
2092 =item panic: ck_grep
2094 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2096 =item panic: ck_split
2098 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2100 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2102 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
2103 are in the savestack.
2105 =item panic: del_backref
2107 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2112 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2113 it wasn't an eval context.
2115 =item panic: do_match
2117 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2119 =item panic: do_split
2121 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2123 =item panic: do_subst
2125 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2127 =item panic: do_trans
2129 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2133 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2137 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2138 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2140 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2142 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2144 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2146 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2148 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2150 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2154 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2155 it wasn't a block context.
2157 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2159 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
2161 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2163 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2164 invalid enum on the top of it.
2168 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2170 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2172 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2173 references to an object.
2175 =item panic: mapstart
2177 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2179 =item panic: null array
2181 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2183 =item panic: pad_alloc
2185 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2186 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2188 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2190 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2191 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2193 =item panic: pad_free po
2195 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2197 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2199 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2200 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2202 =item panic: pad_sv po
2204 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2206 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2208 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2209 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2211 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2213 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2215 =item panic: pp_iter
2217 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2219 =item panic: realloc
2221 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2223 =item panic: restartop
2225 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2226 didn't supply the destination.
2230 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2231 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2233 =item panic: scan_num
2235 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2237 =item panic: sv_insert
2239 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2242 =item panic: top_env
2244 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2248 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2250 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2252 (W) You said something like
2258 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2260 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2262 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2264 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2265 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2266 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2268 =item Permission denied
2270 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2272 =item pid %x not a child
2274 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2275 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2276 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2278 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2280 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2281 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2283 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2285 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2286 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2287 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2288 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2290 You probably wrote something like this:
2297 when you should have written this:
2304 If you really want comments, build your list the
2305 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2309 'b', # another comment
2312 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2314 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2315 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2316 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2319 You probably wrote something like this:
2323 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2324 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2328 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2330 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2331 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2332 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2333 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2335 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2337 (S) The old irregular construct
2341 is now misinterpreted as
2345 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2346 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2347 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2350 =item print on closed filehandle %s
2352 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2353 Check your logic flow.
2355 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
2357 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2358 Check your logic flow.
2360 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2362 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2363 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2364 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2368 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2370 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2371 or defined with a different function prototype.
2373 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2375 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2376 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2377 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2378 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2380 =item Read on closed filehandle %s
2382 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2383 Check your logic flow.
2385 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2387 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2389 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2391 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2392 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2393 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2395 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2397 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2398 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2400 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2402 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2403 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2405 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2407 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2408 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2409 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2410 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2412 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2413 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2414 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2415 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2417 =item Reference is already weak
2419 (W) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2420 Doing so has no effect.
2422 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2424 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2425 reference count of other than 1.
2427 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2429 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2430 could match an empty string.
2432 =item regexp memory corruption
2434 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2435 expression compiler gave it.
2437 =item regexp out of space
2439 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2441 =item Reversed %s= operator
2443 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2444 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2446 =item Runaway format
2448 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2449 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2450 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2451 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2452 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2454 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2456 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2457 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2458 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2459 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2460 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2461 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2463 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2464 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2465 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2468 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2470 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2471 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2472 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2473 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2474 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2475 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2477 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2478 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2479 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2482 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2484 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2485 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2487 =item Search pattern not terminated
2489 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2490 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2491 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2493 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2495 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2496 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2498 =item select not implemented
2500 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2502 =item sem%s not implemented
2504 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2506 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2508 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2509 that had previously been marked as free.
2511 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2513 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2514 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2516 =item Send on closed socket
2518 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2519 Check your logic flow.
2521 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2523 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2526 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2528 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2529 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2531 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2533 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2534 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2536 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2538 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2543 Also known as "500 Server error".
2545 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2547 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2548 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2549 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2550 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2551 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2552 for more information:
2554 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2555 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2556 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2557 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2558 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2560 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2562 =item setegid() not implemented
2564 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2565 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2568 =item seteuid() not implemented
2570 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2571 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2574 =item setrgid() not implemented
2576 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2577 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2580 =item setruid() not implemented
2582 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2583 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2586 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2588 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2589 because the world might have written on it already.
2591 =item shm%s not implemented
2593 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2595 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2597 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2599 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2601 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2602 put it into the wrong package?
2604 =item sort is now a reserved word
2606 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2607 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2609 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2611 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2612 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2613 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2615 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2617 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2618 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2620 =item split /^/ better written as split /^/m
2622 (W) Implicit translation of /^/ to mean /^/m in split is deprecated.
2626 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2627 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2628 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2630 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2632 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2633 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2635 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2637 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2638 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2639 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2640 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2643 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2645 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2646 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2647 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2648 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2649 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2651 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2653 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2654 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2657 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2659 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2663 eval "sub name { ... }";
2666 =item Substitution loop
2668 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2669 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2670 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2671 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2673 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2675 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2676 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2677 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2679 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2681 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2682 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2683 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2685 =item substr outside of string
2687 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2688 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2689 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2690 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2691 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2693 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2695 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2696 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2698 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2700 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2701 real and effective uids or gids.
2705 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2707 A keyword is misspelled.
2708 A semicolon is missing.
2710 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2711 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2712 A closing quote is missing.
2714 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2715 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2716 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2717 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2718 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2719 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2720 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2721 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2722 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2724 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2726 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2727 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2730 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2732 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2733 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2734 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2735 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2737 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2739 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2740 Check your logic flow.
2742 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2744 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2745 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2747 =item tell() on unopened file
2749 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2750 never opened or has since been closed.
2752 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2754 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2755 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2757 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2759 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2760 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2769 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2770 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2772 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2774 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2775 to the probings of Configure.
2777 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2779 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2780 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2781 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2782 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2785 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2787 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2788 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2789 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2791 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL eviron elements (%s)
2793 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2795 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2796 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2797 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2798 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2799 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
2800 %ENV which produced the warning.
2802 =item times not implemented
2804 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2805 you're not running on Unix.
2807 =item Too few args to syscall
2809 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2810 system call to call, silly dilly.
2812 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2814 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2815 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2816 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2817 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2820 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2821 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2822 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2823 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2825 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2826 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2828 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2830 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2831 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2832 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2838 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2839 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2842 =item Too many args to syscall
2844 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2846 =item Too many arguments for %s
2848 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2850 =item trailing \ in regexp
2852 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2855 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
2857 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2858 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
2859 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
2861 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
2863 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2866 =item truncate not implemented
2868 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2869 Configure knows about.
2871 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2873 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2874 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2875 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2876 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2878 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2880 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
2881 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2883 =item umask not implemented
2885 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
2886 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
2888 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2890 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2892 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2894 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2895 contexts were entered and left.
2897 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2899 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2900 values were temporarily localized.
2902 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2904 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2905 were entered and left.
2907 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2909 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2910 scalars were allocated and freed.
2912 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2914 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2915 another package? See L<perlform>.
2917 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2919 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2920 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2922 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2924 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2925 has since been undefined.
2927 =item Undefined subroutine called
2929 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2930 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2932 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2934 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2935 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2937 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2939 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2940 another package? See L<perlform>.
2942 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
2944 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
2945 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
2947 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2949 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2950 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2952 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2954 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2956 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
2958 (F) The second argument of 3-arguments open is not one from the list
2959 of C<L<lt>>, C<L<gt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<+L<lt>>, C<+L<gt>>,
2960 C<+E<gt>E<gt>>, C<-|>, C<|-> of possible open() modes.
2962 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
2964 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
2965 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
2966 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
2967 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
2969 =item unmatched () in regexp
2971 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2972 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2973 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2975 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
2977 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than
2978 opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket.
2979 As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the
2980 place you were last editing.
2982 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2984 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2985 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2988 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2990 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2991 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2992 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2994 =item Unrecognized character %s
2996 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
2997 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
2998 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3000 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3002 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
3005 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3007 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
3008 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
3010 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3012 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
3013 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
3014 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
3016 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3018 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
3019 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
3020 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3022 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3024 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3026 =item Unsupported function fork
3028 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3030 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
3031 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
3032 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3034 =item Unsupported function %s
3036 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3037 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3039 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3041 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3042 least that's what Configure thought.
3044 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
3046 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3047 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
3048 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
3049 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3051 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3053 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
3054 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3056 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3058 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
3059 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
3060 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
3061 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3063 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3065 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3066 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3068 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
3070 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
3071 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3073 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3075 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
3076 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
3077 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3079 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3081 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
3082 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
3083 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
3084 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
3086 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
3087 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
3088 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
3089 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
3090 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
3092 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3093 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
3094 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
3095 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
3097 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
3098 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3099 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3101 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3103 (D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
3104 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
3105 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
3106 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
3107 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
3108 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3110 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3112 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
3113 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
3116 =item Use of uninitialized value
3118 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
3119 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
3120 warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3122 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3124 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3126 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3128 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
3129 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
3130 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
3131 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
3132 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
3133 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
3137 when you meant to say
3139 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3141 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3142 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3147 when you should have said
3151 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3152 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3153 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3154 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3155 L<perlref> for more on this.
3157 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3159 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
3160 valid when C<untie> was called.
3162 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3164 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
3165 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
3166 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
3167 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
3168 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
3170 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3172 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3173 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3174 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3177 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3179 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
3180 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3181 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
3182 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
3183 on the front of your variable.
3185 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3187 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
3188 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
3189 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
3190 the outermost subroutine. For example:
3192 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3194 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3195 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
3196 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3197 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
3198 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
3199 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
3202 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
3203 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
3204 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
3205 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
3207 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3209 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
3210 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3212 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3213 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3214 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3215 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3216 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3217 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3219 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3220 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3221 will I<never> share the given variable.
3223 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3224 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3225 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3226 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3229 =item Variable syntax
3231 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3232 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3235 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3237 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3239 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3240 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3243 are supported and installed on your system.
3244 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3246 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3247 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3248 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3249 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3250 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3251 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3252 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3253 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3254 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3256 =item Warning: something's wrong
3258 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3259 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3261 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3263 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3264 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3266 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3268 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3269 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3270 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3271 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3275 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3279 but in actual fact, you got
3283 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3285 =item Write on closed filehandle %s
3287 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3288 Check your logic flow.
3290 =item X outside of string
3292 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3293 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3295 =item x outside of string
3297 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3298 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3300 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3302 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3304 =item Xsub called in sort
3306 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3308 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3310 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3311 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3312 Use a filename instead.
3314 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3316 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3317 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3318 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3319 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3321 =item You need to quote "%s"
3323 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3324 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3325 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3326 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3328 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
3330 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3331 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3332 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
3334 =item \1 better written as $1
3336 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3337 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3338 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3339 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3340 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3342 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3344 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3345 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3346 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3348 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3350 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3351 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3352 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3353 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3356 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3363 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3365 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3366 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3368 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3370 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3378 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3379 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3380 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3381 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3383 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3385 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3386 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3388 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3390 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3391 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3392 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3393 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"