3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
22 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
23 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
24 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
27 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
28 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
29 Since the messages are listed in alphabetical order, the symbols
30 C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
34 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
36 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try that
39 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
41 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
42 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
43 if you want to localize a package variable.
45 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
47 (W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
48 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
49 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
50 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
53 =item "no" not allowed in expression
55 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
56 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
58 =item "use" not allowed in expression
60 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
61 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
63 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
65 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
68 =item / cannot take a count
70 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
71 but you have also specified an explicit size for the string.
74 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
76 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
77 which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z
78 to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked.
81 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
83 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
84 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*.
87 =item / must follow a numeric type
89 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#',
90 but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.
93 =item % may only be used in unpack
95 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
96 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
97 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
99 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
101 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
102 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
104 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
106 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
107 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
109 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
111 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
112 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
113 C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood literally.
115 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
117 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
118 by Perl inside character classes. The character was understood literally.
120 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
122 (W) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
123 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true
124 or false result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string,
125 which is probably not what you had in mind.
127 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
129 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
130 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
131 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
133 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
135 (W) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a
136 definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call
137 conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype
138 declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine
139 definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively,
140 if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put
141 an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L<perlsub>.
143 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
145 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
148 $ref->[12]->["susie"]
150 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
152 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element, such as:
155 $ref->[12]->["susie"]
157 or a hash or array slice, such as:
159 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
160 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
162 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
164 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
165 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
167 =item %s did not return a true value
169 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
170 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
171 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
172 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
174 =item %s found where operator expected
176 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
177 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
178 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
179 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
181 =item %s had compilation errors
183 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
185 =item %s has too many errors
187 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
188 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
190 =item %s matches null string many times
192 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
193 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
195 =item %s never introduced
197 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
198 before it could possibly have been used.
200 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
202 (W) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a package-specific handler.
203 That name might have a meaning to Perl itself some day, even though it
204 doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a mixed-case attribute name, instead.
209 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
211 =item %s: Command not found
213 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
214 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
217 =item %s: Expression syntax
219 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
220 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
223 =item %s: Undefined variable
225 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
226 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
231 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
232 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
235 =item (in cleanup) %s
237 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
238 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
239 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
240 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
241 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
244 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
245 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
247 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
249 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
250 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
251 the previous line just because you saw this message.
253 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
255 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
256 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
258 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
260 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
261 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
263 =item C<-p> destination: %s
265 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
266 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
267 redirected it with select().)
269 =item 500 Server error
273 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
275 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
276 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
278 =item @ outside of string
280 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
281 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
283 =item <> should be quotes
285 (F) You wrote C<require E<lt>fileE<gt>> when you should have written
288 =item accept() on closed socket
290 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
291 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
293 =item Allocation too large: %lx
295 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
297 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
299 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
300 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
301 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
302 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
303 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
304 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
306 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
308 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
310 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
312 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
313 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
314 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
316 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
318 (W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
319 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
320 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
323 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
324 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
325 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
326 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
328 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
329 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
330 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">
333 =item Args must match #! line
335 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
336 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
337 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
338 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
340 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
342 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
343 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
344 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
346 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
348 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
349 is now heavily deprecated.
351 =item assertion botched: %s
353 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
355 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
357 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
359 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
361 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
362 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
363 know which context to supply to the right side.
365 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
367 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
368 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
371 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
373 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
374 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
375 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
376 that can no longer be found in the table.
378 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
380 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
381 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
382 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
383 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
386 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
388 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
390 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
392 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
393 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
394 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
395 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
396 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
397 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
399 =item Attempt to join self
401 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
402 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
403 need to move the join() to some other thread.
405 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
407 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
408 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
409 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
410 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
411 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
414 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
416 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
417 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
418 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
420 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
422 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
423 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
424 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
425 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
427 =item Bad filehandle: %s
429 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
430 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
431 did it in another package.
433 =item Bad free() ignored
435 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
436 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
437 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
439 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
440 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
441 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
446 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
448 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
450 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
451 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
454 =item Bad name after %s::
456 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
457 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
466 $sym = "mypack::$var";
468 =item Bad realloc() ignored
470 (S) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had never been
471 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
472 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
474 =item Bad symbol for array
476 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
477 wasn't a symbol table entry.
479 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
481 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
482 wasn't a symbol table entry.
484 =item Bad symbol for hash
486 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
487 wasn't a symbol table entry.
489 =item Badly placed ()'s
491 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
492 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
495 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
497 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
498 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
499 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
501 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
503 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
504 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
505 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
507 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
509 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
510 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
512 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
514 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
515 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
516 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
517 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
518 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
520 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
522 (W) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
523 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
524 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
526 =item bind() on closed socket
528 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
529 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
531 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
533 (W) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
535 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
537 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
539 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
541 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
542 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
543 so it was truncated to the string shown.
545 =item Callback called exit
547 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
548 exited by calling exit.
550 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
552 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
553 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
554 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
555 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
557 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
559 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
560 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
562 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
564 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
565 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
566 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
567 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep().
568 You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect though,
569 because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once.
570 See L<perlfunc/last>.
572 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
574 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
575 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
576 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
577 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
578 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
579 loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
581 =item Can't read CRTL environ
583 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
584 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
585 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
586 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
588 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
590 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
591 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
592 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
593 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
594 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
595 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
597 =item Can't bless non-reference value
599 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
600 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
602 =item Can't break at that line
604 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
605 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
608 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
610 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
611 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
612 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
614 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
616 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
617 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
618 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
619 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
621 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
623 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
624 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
625 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
626 Something like this will reproduce the error:
629 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
630 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
632 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
634 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
635 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
636 Something like this will reproduce the error:
639 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
640 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
642 =item Can't chdir to %s
644 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
645 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
647 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
649 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
651 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
653 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
654 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
664 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
666 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
668 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
669 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
671 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
673 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
674 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
676 =item Can't coerce array into hash
678 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
679 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
680 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
682 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
684 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
685 or other plumbing problems.
687 =item Can't declare %s in my
689 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
690 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
692 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
694 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
696 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
698 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
699 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
702 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
704 (S) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
705 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
706 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
708 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
710 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
711 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
713 =item Can't do setegid!
715 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
718 =item Can't do seteuid!
720 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
722 =item Can't do setuid
724 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
725 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
726 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
727 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
728 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
729 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
731 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
733 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
734 without flags is emulated.
736 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
738 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
739 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
741 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
743 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
744 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
746 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
748 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
749 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
750 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
751 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
752 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
753 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
757 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
758 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
759 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
761 =item Can't execute %s
763 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
764 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
766 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
768 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
769 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
770 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
772 =item Can't find %s on PATH
774 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
777 =item Can't find label %s
779 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
780 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
782 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
784 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
785 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
786 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
788 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
790 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
791 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
792 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
796 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
798 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
800 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
801 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
802 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
803 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
804 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
805 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
806 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
807 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
808 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
809 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
810 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
811 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
812 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
813 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
815 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
817 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
818 can't retrieve its name for later use.
820 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
822 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
823 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
825 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
827 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
828 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
829 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
832 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
834 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
835 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
837 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
839 (W) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD signal
840 (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this signal
841 will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
842 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value.
843 This situation typically indicates that the parent program under
844 which Perl may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
846 =item Can't localize through a reference
848 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
849 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
850 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
851 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
853 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
855 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
856 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
857 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
860 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
862 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
863 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
864 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
865 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
867 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
869 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
870 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
871 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
872 doing C<make install>.
874 =item Can't locate %s
876 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
877 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
878 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
879 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra
880 library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or
881 maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>
884 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
886 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
887 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
888 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
890 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
892 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
895 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
897 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
899 =item Can't modify %s in %s
901 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
902 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
904 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
906 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
907 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
909 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
911 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
914 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
916 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
919 =item Can't open %s: %s
921 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
922 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
923 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
924 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
927 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
929 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
930 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
931 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
932 and then read it in under a different file handle.
934 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
936 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
937 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
938 command line for writing.
940 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
942 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
943 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
945 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
947 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
948 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
951 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
953 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
954 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
956 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
958 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
960 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
962 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
963 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
964 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
965 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
967 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
969 (S) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup file. Perl
970 was unable to remove the original file to replace it with the modified
971 file. The file was left unmodified.
973 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
975 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
976 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
978 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
980 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
981 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
983 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
985 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
988 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
990 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
991 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
993 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
995 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such
996 as temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue.
999 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1001 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
1002 it open already. Bizarre.
1004 =item Can't swap uid and euid
1006 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
1009 =item Can't take log of %g
1011 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1012 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1013 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
1014 the negative numbers.
1016 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1018 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1019 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1020 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1022 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1024 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1025 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1026 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1030 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1031 as the main Perl stack.
1033 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
1035 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
1036 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
1037 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
1038 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1040 =item Can't upgrade to undef
1042 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
1043 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
1044 code calling sv_upgrade.
1046 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
1048 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1049 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1050 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1052 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1054 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1055 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
1056 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1057 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1060 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
1062 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
1063 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
1064 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
1066 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1068 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
1070 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1072 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1073 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1074 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1076 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1078 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
1079 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
1080 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
1081 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
1082 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
1084 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1086 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1087 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1089 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1091 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1092 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1094 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1096 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1097 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1099 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1101 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
1102 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
1103 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
1104 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1107 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1109 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1110 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1111 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1113 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1115 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1116 references can be weakened.
1118 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1120 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
1121 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1122 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1124 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
1126 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
1127 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
1129 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1131 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1132 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1133 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1135 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1137 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
1140 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1142 (W) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1143 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
1144 for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .]
1145 are not currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for
1148 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1150 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
1151 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
1152 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1153 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1154 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1156 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1158 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1159 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
1160 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1161 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1162 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1164 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
1166 (W) A novice will sometimes say
1168 chmod 777, $filename
1170 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1171 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1173 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1175 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1177 =item Compilation failed in require
1179 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1180 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1181 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1183 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1185 (W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1186 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1187 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1188 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1189 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1190 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1191 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1192 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1193 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1195 =item connect() on closed socket
1197 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1198 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1200 =item Constant is not %s reference
1202 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1203 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1204 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1205 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1206 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1208 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1210 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1211 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1214 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1216 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1217 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1220 =item constant(%s): %%^H is not localized
1222 (F) When setting compile-time-lexicalized hash %^H one should set the
1223 corresponding bit of $^H as well.
1225 =item constant(%s): %s
1227 (F) Compile-time-substitutions (such as overloaded constants and
1228 character names) were not correctly set up.
1230 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1232 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1234 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1236 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1238 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1240 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1241 expression compiler gave it.
1243 =item corrupted regexp program
1245 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1246 a valid magic number.
1248 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1250 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1251 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1252 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1253 case it indicates something else.
1255 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1257 (D) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
1258 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
1259 just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1261 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1263 (D) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
1264 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
1265 just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1267 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1269 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1270 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1271 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1273 =item Did not produce a valid header
1277 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1279 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1281 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1283 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1284 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1288 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1289 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1291 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1293 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1294 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1295 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1296 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1297 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1298 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1299 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1300 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1303 =item Document contains no data
1307 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1309 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1311 =item do_study: out of memory
1313 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1315 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1317 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1320 =item elseif should be elsif
1322 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1323 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1324 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1325 unlikely to be what you want.
1327 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1329 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a STOP, INIT, or
1330 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1331 routines has been prematurely ended.
1333 =item entering effective %s failed
1335 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1336 effective uids or gids failed.
1338 =item Error converting file specification %s
1340 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1341 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1342 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1343 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1344 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1346 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1348 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1349 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1350 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1352 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1354 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1355 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1356 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1358 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1360 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1361 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1362 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1363 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1364 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1365 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1367 =item Excessively long <> operator
1369 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1370 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1371 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1372 variable and glob that.
1374 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1376 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1378 =item Exiting eval via %s
1380 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1381 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1383 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1385 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1386 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1387 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1389 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1391 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1392 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1394 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1396 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1397 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1399 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1401 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1402 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1403 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1404 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1406 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1408 (W) A character class range must start and end at a literal character, not
1409 another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-" in your false
1410 range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the "-", "\-".
1413 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1415 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1416 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1417 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1418 the Perl source code is distressed.
1420 =item fcntl is not implemented
1422 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1423 PDP-11 or something?
1425 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1427 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1428 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1429 the FileHandle package.
1431 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1433 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1434 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1435 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1436 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1439 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1441 (W) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
1442 intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1443 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1444 you intended only to read from the file, use "E<lt>". See
1447 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1449 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1450 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1451 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1454 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1456 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1457 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1458 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1461 =item Format %s redefined
1463 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1467 eval "format NAME =...";
1470 =item Format not terminated
1472 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1473 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1475 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1485 (or something like that).
1487 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1489 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1491 =item gethostent not implemented
1493 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1494 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1497 =item get%sname() on closed socket
1499 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1500 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1502 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1504 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1505 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1507 =item Glob not terminated
1509 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1510 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1511 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1512 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1514 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1516 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1517 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1518 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1520 =item goto must have label
1522 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1523 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1525 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1527 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1528 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1529 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1531 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1533 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1534 is now heavily deprecated.
1536 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1538 (W) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1539 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1540 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1542 =item Identifier too long
1544 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1545 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1546 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1547 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1549 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1551 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1552 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1553 used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1555 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1557 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1558 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1559 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1562 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1564 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1565 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1566 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1568 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1569 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1570 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1571 properly converting the text file format.
1573 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1574 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1575 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1577 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1578 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1581 =item Illegal division by zero
1583 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1584 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1586 =item Illegal modulus zero
1588 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1589 don't take to this kindly.
1591 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1593 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1595 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1597 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1599 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1601 (W) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1602 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1604 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1606 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1607 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1609 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1611 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f
1612 in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1613 before the illegal character.
1615 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1617 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1618 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1620 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1622 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1623 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1625 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1627 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1628 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1629 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1630 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1631 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1632 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1633 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1635 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1637 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1638 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1639 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1640 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1641 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1642 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1643 for more information.
1645 =item Insecure directory in %s
1647 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1648 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1651 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1653 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1654 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1655 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1656 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1657 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1659 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1661 (W) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either
1662 as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for your
1663 architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a
1664 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1665 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1666 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1667 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1668 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1671 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1673 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1674 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1675 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1676 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1677 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1678 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1679 and execute the specified command.
1681 =item internal disaster in regexp
1683 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1685 =item glob failed (%s)
1687 (W) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1688 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1689 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1690 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1691 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1692 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1693 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1694 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1695 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1696 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1699 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1701 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1703 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1705 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1706 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1708 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1710 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not recognized
1711 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1713 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1715 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1716 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1718 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1720 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1721 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1723 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1725 (F) Something other than a comma or whitespace was seen between the
1726 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute
1727 had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated
1728 too soon. See L<attributes>.
1730 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1732 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1733 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1736 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1738 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1739 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1742 =item ioctl is not implemented
1744 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1745 strange for a machine that supports C.
1747 =item junk on end of regexp
1749 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1751 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1753 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1754 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1755 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1757 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1759 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1760 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1763 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1765 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1766 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1769 =item leaving effective %s failed
1771 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1772 effective uids or gids failed.
1774 =item listen() on closed socket
1776 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1777 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1779 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1781 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1782 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context.
1783 See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1785 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1787 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1788 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1790 =item Method %s not permitted
1794 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1796 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1797 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1798 ended earlier on the current line.
1800 =item Misplaced _ in number
1802 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1804 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1806 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1807 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1808 one line to the next.
1810 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1812 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1813 double-quotish context.
1815 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1817 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1818 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1820 =item Missing command in piped open
1822 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1823 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1825 =item Missing operator before %s?
1827 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1828 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1830 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1832 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than
1833 closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place
1834 you were last editing.
1836 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1838 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1839 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1840 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1842 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1845 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1847 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1849 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1850 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1853 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1855 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1856 be created for some peculiar reason.
1858 =item Module name must be constant
1860 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1862 =item msg%s not implemented
1864 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1866 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1868 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1869 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1871 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1873 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that they
1874 have a name with which they can be found.
1876 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1878 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1879 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1880 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1881 provided for this purpose.
1883 =item Negative length
1885 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1886 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1888 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1890 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1891 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1893 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1894 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1898 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1899 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1901 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1903 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1904 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1905 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1908 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1910 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1912 =item No %s specified for -%c
1914 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
1915 you haven't specified one.
1917 =item No comma allowed after %s
1919 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1920 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1921 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1923 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1924 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1925 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1926 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1927 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1928 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1929 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1930 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1931 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1932 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1933 this error was triggered?
1935 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1937 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1938 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1939 want to pipe the output from this command.
1941 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1943 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1944 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1945 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1946 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1947 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1950 =item No dbm on this machine
1952 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1953 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1955 =item No DBsub routine
1957 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1958 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1959 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1960 ordinary subroutine call.
1962 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1964 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1965 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1966 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1968 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1970 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1971 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1972 from which to read data for stdin.
1974 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1976 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1977 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1978 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1980 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1982 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1983 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1984 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1986 =item No Perl script found in input
1988 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1989 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1991 =item No setregid available
1993 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1996 =item No setreuid available
1998 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2001 =item No space allowed after -%c
2003 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow immediately
2004 after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2006 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2008 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2009 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2010 array indices for that to work.
2012 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2014 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
2015 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
2016 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
2017 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2019 =item No such pipe open
2021 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2022 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
2023 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2025 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2027 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
2028 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2030 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2032 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2033 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2034 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
2035 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
2038 =item Not a CODE reference
2040 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2041 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2042 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2043 See also L<perlref>.
2045 =item Not a format reference
2047 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2048 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2050 =item Not a GLOB reference
2052 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
2053 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2054 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
2055 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2057 =item Not a HASH reference
2059 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
2060 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2061 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2063 =item Not a perl script
2065 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2066 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2069 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2071 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
2072 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2073 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2075 =item Not a subroutine reference
2077 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2078 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2079 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2080 See also L<perlref>.
2082 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2084 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2085 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2087 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2089 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
2090 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2091 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2093 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2095 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2097 =item Not enough format arguments
2099 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
2102 =item Null filename used
2104 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
2105 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2107 =item Null picture in formline
2109 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2110 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2111 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2113 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2115 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
2119 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2121 =item NULL regexp argument
2123 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2125 =item NULL regexp parameter
2127 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2129 =item Number too long
2131 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
2132 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
2133 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
2134 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
2136 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2138 (W) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295)
2139 and therefore non-portable between systems. See L<perlport> for more
2140 on portability concerns.
2142 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2144 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2146 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
2147 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2149 =item Offset outside string
2151 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2152 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
2153 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
2154 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2158 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2162 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2164 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2166 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
2167 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
2168 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
2169 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
2170 true. See L<overload>.
2172 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2174 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
2175 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
2176 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
2177 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
2178 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
2180 =item Out of memory!
2182 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2183 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl
2184 has no option but to exit immediately.
2186 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2188 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
2189 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
2191 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2193 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2194 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
2196 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2197 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2198 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
2199 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
2200 error is trappable I<once>.
2202 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2204 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2205 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2206 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
2207 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2209 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2211 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2212 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
2213 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2217 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
2220 =item panic: ck_grep
2222 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2224 =item panic: ck_split
2226 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2228 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2230 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
2231 are in the savestack.
2233 =item panic: del_backref
2235 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2240 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2241 it wasn't an eval context.
2243 =item panic: do_match
2245 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2247 =item panic: do_split
2249 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2251 =item panic: do_subst
2253 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2255 =item panic: do_trans
2257 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2261 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2265 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2266 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2268 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2270 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2272 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2274 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2276 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2278 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2282 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2283 it wasn't a block context.
2285 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2287 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
2289 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2291 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2292 invalid enum on the top of it.
2296 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2298 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2300 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2301 references to an object.
2303 =item panic: mapstart
2305 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2307 =item panic: null array
2309 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2311 =item panic: pad_alloc
2313 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2314 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2316 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2318 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2319 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2321 =item panic: pad_free po
2323 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2325 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2327 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2328 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2330 =item panic: pad_sv po
2332 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2334 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2336 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2337 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2339 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2341 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2343 =item panic: pp_iter
2345 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2347 =item panic: realloc
2349 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2351 =item panic: restartop
2353 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2354 didn't supply the destination.
2358 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2359 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2361 =item panic: scan_num
2363 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2365 =item panic: sv_insert
2367 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2370 =item panic: top_env
2372 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2376 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2380 (P) An internal error.
2382 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2384 (W) You said something like
2390 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2392 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2394 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2396 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2397 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2398 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2400 =item Permission denied
2402 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2404 =item pid %x not a child
2406 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2407 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2408 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2410 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2412 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2413 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2415 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2417 (W) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2418 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2420 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2422 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2423 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2424 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2425 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2427 You probably wrote something like this:
2434 when you should have written this:
2441 If you really want comments, build your list the
2442 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2446 'b', # another comment
2449 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2451 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2452 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2453 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2456 You probably wrote something like this:
2460 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2461 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2465 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2467 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2468 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2469 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2470 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2472 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2474 (S) The old irregular construct
2478 is now misinterpreted as
2482 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2483 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2484 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2487 =item Premature end of script headers
2491 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2493 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2494 Check your logic flow.
2496 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2498 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2499 Check your logic flow.
2501 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2503 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2504 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2505 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2509 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2511 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2512 or defined with a different function prototype.
2514 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2516 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2517 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2518 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2519 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2521 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2523 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2524 Check your logic flow.
2526 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2528 (S) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had already
2531 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2533 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2535 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2537 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2538 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2539 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2541 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2543 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2544 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2546 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2548 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2549 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2551 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2553 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2554 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2555 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2556 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2558 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2559 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2560 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2561 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2563 =item Reference is already weak
2565 (W) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2566 Doing so has no effect.
2568 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2570 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2571 reference count of other than 1.
2573 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2575 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2576 could match an empty string.
2578 =item regexp memory corruption
2580 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2581 expression compiler gave it.
2583 =item regexp out of space
2585 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2587 =item Reversed %s= operator
2589 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2590 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2592 =item Runaway format
2594 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2595 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2596 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2597 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2598 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2600 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2602 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2603 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2604 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2605 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2606 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2607 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2609 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2610 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2611 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2614 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2616 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2617 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2618 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2619 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2620 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2621 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2623 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2624 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2625 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2628 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2630 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2631 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2633 =item Search pattern not terminated
2635 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2636 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2637 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2639 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2641 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2642 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2644 =item select not implemented
2646 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2648 =item sem%s not implemented
2650 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2652 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2654 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2655 that had previously been marked as free.
2657 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2659 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2660 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2662 =item send() on closed socket
2664 (W) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2665 Check your logic flow.
2667 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2669 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2672 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2674 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2675 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2677 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2679 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2680 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2682 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2684 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2689 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
2690 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error
2691 text varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen
2692 variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted",
2693 "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and
2694 "Did not produce a valid header".
2696 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2698 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2699 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2700 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2701 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2702 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2703 for more information:
2705 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2706 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2707 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2708 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2709 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2711 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2713 =item setegid() not implemented
2715 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2716 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2719 =item seteuid() not implemented
2721 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2722 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2725 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
2727 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no arguments,
2728 unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process group ID.
2730 =item setrgid() not implemented
2732 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2733 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2736 =item setruid() not implemented
2738 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2739 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2742 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2744 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2745 because the world might have written on it already.
2747 =item shm%s not implemented
2749 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2751 =item shutdown() on closed socket
2753 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2755 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2757 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2758 put it into the wrong package?
2760 =item sort is now a reserved word
2762 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2763 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2765 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2767 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2768 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2769 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2771 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2773 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2774 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2778 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2779 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2780 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2782 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2784 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2785 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2787 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2789 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2790 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2791 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2792 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2795 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2797 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2798 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2799 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2800 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2801 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2803 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2805 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2806 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2809 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2811 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2815 eval "sub name { ... }";
2818 =item Substitution loop
2820 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2821 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2822 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2823 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2825 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2827 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2828 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2829 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2831 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2833 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2834 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2835 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2837 =item substr outside of string
2839 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2840 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2841 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2842 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2843 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2845 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2847 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2848 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2850 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2852 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2853 real and effective uids or gids.
2857 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2859 A keyword is misspelled.
2860 A semicolon is missing.
2862 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2863 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2864 A closing quote is missing.
2866 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2867 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2868 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2869 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2870 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2871 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2872 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2873 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2874 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2876 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2878 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2879 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2882 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2884 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2885 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2886 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2887 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2889 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle
2891 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2892 Check your logic flow.
2894 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2896 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2897 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2899 =item tell() on unopened file
2901 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2902 never opened or has since been closed.
2904 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2906 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2907 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2909 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2911 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2912 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2921 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2922 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2924 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2926 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2927 to the probings of Configure.
2929 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2931 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2932 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2933 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2934 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2937 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2939 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2940 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2941 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2943 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
2945 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2947 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2948 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2949 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2950 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2951 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
2952 %ENV which produced the warning.
2954 =item times not implemented
2956 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2957 you're not running on Unix.
2959 =item Too few args to syscall
2961 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2962 system call to call, silly dilly.
2964 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2966 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2967 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2968 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2969 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2972 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2973 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2974 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2975 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2977 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2978 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2980 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2982 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2983 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2984 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2990 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2991 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2994 =item Too many args to syscall
2996 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2998 =item Too many arguments for %s
3000 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3002 =item trailing \ in regexp
3004 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
3007 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3009 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3010 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3011 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3013 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3015 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3018 =item truncate not implemented
3020 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3021 Configure knows about.
3023 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3025 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3026 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3027 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3028 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3030 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3032 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3033 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3035 =item umask not implemented
3037 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
3038 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3040 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3042 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3044 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3046 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
3047 contexts were entered and left.
3049 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3051 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
3052 values were temporarily localized.
3054 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3056 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
3057 were entered and left.
3059 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3061 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
3062 scalars were allocated and freed.
3064 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3066 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3067 another package? See L<perlform>.
3069 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3071 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
3072 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3074 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3076 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
3077 has since been undefined.
3079 =item Undefined subroutine called
3081 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3082 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3084 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3086 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
3087 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3089 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3091 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3092 another package? See L<perlform>.
3094 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3096 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
3097 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
3099 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3101 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3102 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3104 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3106 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
3108 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3110 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3111 of valid modes: C<L<lt>>, C<L<gt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<+L<lt>>,
3112 C<+L<gt>>, C<+E<gt>E<gt>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3114 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3116 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3117 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3118 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3119 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3121 =item unmatched () in regexp
3123 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3124 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
3125 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3127 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3129 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than
3130 opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket.
3131 As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the
3132 place you were last editing.
3134 =item unmatched [] in regexp
3136 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3137 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
3140 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3142 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
3143 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
3144 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
3146 =item Unrecognized character %s
3148 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3149 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3150 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3152 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3154 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
3157 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3159 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
3160 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
3162 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3164 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
3165 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
3166 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
3168 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3170 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
3171 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
3172 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3174 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3176 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3178 =item Unsupported function fork
3180 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3182 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
3183 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
3184 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3186 =item Unsupported function %s
3188 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3189 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3191 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3193 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3194 least that's what Configure thought.
3196 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
3198 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3199 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
3200 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
3201 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3203 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3205 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing an
3206 attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3207 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3208 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3210 =item Unterminated attribute list
3212 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start
3213 of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3214 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute
3215 too soon. See L<attributes>.
3217 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3219 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
3220 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3222 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3224 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
3225 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
3226 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
3227 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3229 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3231 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3232 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3234 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
3236 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
3237 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3239 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3241 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
3242 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
3243 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3245 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3247 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
3248 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
3249 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
3250 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
3252 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
3253 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
3254 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
3255 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
3256 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
3258 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3259 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
3260 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
3261 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
3263 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
3264 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3265 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3267 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3269 (D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
3270 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
3271 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
3272 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
3273 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
3274 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3276 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3278 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
3279 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
3282 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3284 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
3285 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
3286 warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3288 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3290 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3292 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3294 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
3295 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
3296 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
3297 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
3298 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
3299 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
3303 when you meant to say
3305 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3307 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3308 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3313 when you should have said
3317 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3318 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3319 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3320 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3321 L<perlref> for more on this.
3323 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3325 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
3326 valid when C<untie> was called.
3328 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3330 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
3331 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
3332 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
3333 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
3334 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
3336 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3338 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3339 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3340 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3343 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3345 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
3346 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3347 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
3348 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
3349 on the front of your variable.
3351 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3353 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
3354 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
3355 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
3356 the outermost subroutine. For example:
3358 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3360 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3361 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
3362 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3363 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
3364 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
3365 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
3368 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
3369 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
3370 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
3371 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
3373 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3375 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
3376 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3378 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3379 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3380 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3381 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3382 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3383 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3385 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3386 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3387 will I<never> share the given variable.
3389 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3390 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3391 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3392 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3395 =item Variable syntax
3397 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3398 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3401 =item Version number must be a constant number
3403 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3404 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3407 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3409 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3411 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3412 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3415 are supported and installed on your system.
3416 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3418 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3419 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3420 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3421 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3422 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3423 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3424 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3425 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3426 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3428 =item Warning: something's wrong
3430 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3431 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3433 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3435 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3436 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3438 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3440 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3441 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3442 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3443 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3447 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3451 but in actual fact, you got
3455 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3457 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
3459 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3460 Check your logic flow.
3462 =item X outside of string
3464 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3465 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3467 =item x outside of string
3469 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3470 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3472 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3474 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3476 =item Xsub called in sort
3478 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3480 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3482 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3483 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3484 Use a filename instead.
3486 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3488 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3489 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3490 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3491 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3493 =item You need to quote "%s"
3495 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3496 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3497 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3498 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3500 =item %cetsockopt() on closed fd
3502 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3503 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3504 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt> and L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3506 =item \1 better written as $1
3508 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3509 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3510 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3511 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3512 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3514 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3516 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3517 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3518 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3520 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3522 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3523 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3524 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3525 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3528 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3535 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3537 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3538 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3540 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3542 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3550 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3551 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3552 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3553 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3555 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3557 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3558 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3560 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3562 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3563 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3564 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3565 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"