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 (non-trappable).
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<$^Q> to a reference to a routine that will be
20 called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
24 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
25 just as in a printf format. Note that some message start with a %s!
26 The symbols C<"%-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
30 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
32 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34 if you want to localize a package variable.
36 =item "no" not allowed in expression
38 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
39 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
41 =item "use" not allowed in expression
43 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
44 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
46 =item % may only be used in unpack
48 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, since the
49 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
50 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
52 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
54 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
55 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
56 found inside the parens. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
58 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
60 (F) The argument to delete() or exists() must be a hash element, such as
65 =item %s did not return a true value
67 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
68 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
69 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
70 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
72 =item %s found where operator expected
74 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
75 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
76 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
77 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
79 =item %s had compilation errors.
81 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
83 =item %s has too many errors.
85 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
86 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
88 =item %s matches null string many times
90 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
91 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
93 =item %s never introduced
95 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
96 before it could possibly have been used.
100 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
102 =item %s: Command not found.
104 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
105 of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
108 =item %s: Expression syntax.
110 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
111 of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
114 =item %s: Undefined variable.
116 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
117 of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
122 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
123 instead of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
126 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
128 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
129 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
131 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
133 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
134 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
136 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
138 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
139 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
141 =item @ outside of string
143 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolution position outside
144 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
146 =item accept() on closed fd
148 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
149 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
151 =item Allocation too large: %lx
153 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
155 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
157 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
159 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
161 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
162 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
163 a missing quote, operator, paren pair or declaration.
165 =item Args must match #! line
167 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
168 with match the arguments specified on the #! line.
170 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric
172 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
173 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
174 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
176 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
178 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
179 is now heavily deprecated.
181 =item assertion botched: %s
183 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
185 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
187 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
189 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
191 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
192 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
193 know which context to supply to the right side.
195 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
197 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
198 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
201 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
203 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
204 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
205 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
206 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
209 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
211 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
213 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
215 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
216 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
217 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
218 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
219 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
220 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
222 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
224 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
225 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sized are, respectively,
226 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)> and
227 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
229 =item Bad associative array
231 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
233 =item Bad filehandle: %s
235 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
236 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
237 did it in another package.
239 =item Bad free() ignored
241 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
242 malloc()ed in the first place.
244 =item Bad name after %s::
246 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
247 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
256 $sym = "mypack::$var";
258 =item Bad symbol for array
260 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
261 wasn't a symbol table entry.
263 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
265 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
266 wasn't a symbol table entry.
268 =item Bad symbol for hash
270 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
271 wasn't a symbol table entry.
273 =item Badly places ()'s
275 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
276 of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
279 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
281 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
282 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
284 =item bind() on closed fd
286 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
287 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
289 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
291 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
293 =item Callback called exit
295 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
296 exited by calling exit.
298 =item Can't "last" outside a block
300 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
301 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
302 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
303 "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get the same
304 effect though, since the inner curlies will be considered a block
305 that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
307 =item Can't "next" outside a block
309 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
310 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
311 count as a "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get
312 the same effect though, since the inner curlies will be considered a block
313 that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
315 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
317 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
318 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
319 count as a "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get
320 the same effect though, since the inner curlies will be considered a block
321 that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
323 =item Can't bless non-reference value
325 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
326 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
328 =item Can't break at that line
330 (S) A warning intended for while running within the debugger, indicating
331 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
334 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
336 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
337 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
338 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
340 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
342 (F) A method call must know what package it's supposed to run in. It
343 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
344 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
345 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
347 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
349 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
350 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
351 neither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)
352 Something like this will reproduce the error:
355 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
356 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
358 =item Can't chdir to %s
360 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
361 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
363 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
365 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
366 (type GLOB), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
376 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
378 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
380 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
381 (type GLOB), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
383 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
385 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
386 (type GLOB), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
388 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
390 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
391 or other plumbing problems.
393 =item Can't declare %s in my
395 (F) Only scalar, array and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
396 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
398 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
400 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
402 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
404 (F) You're on a system such as MSDOS that gets confused if you try reading
405 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say B<-i>C<.bak>, or some
408 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s > 14 characters
410 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
412 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
414 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
415 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
417 =item Can't do setegid!
419 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
422 =item Can't do seteuid!
424 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
426 =item Can't do setuid
428 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
429 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
430 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
431 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
432 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
433 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
435 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
437 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
438 without flags is emulated.
440 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m
442 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
443 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
445 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
447 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
448 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
450 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
452 (W) An system(), exec() or piped open call could not execute the named
453 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
454 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
455 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
456 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
457 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
461 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
462 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
463 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
465 =item Can't execute %s
467 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
468 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions.
470 =item Can't find label %s
472 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
473 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
475 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
477 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
478 the closing delimiter was omitted. Since bracketed quotes count nesting
479 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
481 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.)
485 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
487 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
489 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
490 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
491 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
492 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
493 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
494 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
495 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
496 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
497 routine, since the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
498 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
499 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
500 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
501 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
502 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
504 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
506 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
507 can't retrieve its name for later use.
509 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
511 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
512 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
514 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
516 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
517 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
518 you should only be calling it out of an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
521 =item Can't localize a reference
523 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which is not allowed because
524 the compiler can't determine whether $ref will end up pointing to anything
525 with a symbol table entry, and a symbol table entry is necessary to
528 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
530 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previous declared as a
531 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
532 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
535 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
537 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
538 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set
539 the PERL5LIB environment variable to say where the extra library is,
540 or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
541 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
543 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
545 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
546 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
547 method, nor does any of it's base classes. See L<perlobj>.
549 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
551 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
556 (F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while trying to process
557 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
559 =item Can't modify %s in %s
561 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
562 change it, such as with an autoincrement.
564 =item Can't modify non-existent substring
566 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
569 =item Can't msgrcv to readonly var
571 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable in order to be used as a receive
574 =item Can't open %s: %s
576 (S) An inplace edit couldn't open the original file for the indicated reason.
577 Usually this is because you don't have read permission for the file.
579 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
581 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
582 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
583 "open2.pl". Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using ">",
584 and then read it in under a different file handle.
586 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
588 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
589 couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on the command line for
592 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
594 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
595 couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the command line for reading.
597 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
599 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
600 couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on the command line for
603 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
605 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
606 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
608 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
610 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
612 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
614 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
615 you don't have write permission to the directory.
617 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
619 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
620 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
622 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
624 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
627 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
629 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
630 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
632 =item Can't stat script "%s"
634 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
635 it open already. Bizarre.
637 =item Can't swap uid and euid
639 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
642 =item Can't take log of %g
644 (F) Logarithms are only defined on positive real numbers.
646 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
648 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
649 negative number. There's a Complex package available for Perl, though,
650 if you really want to do that.
652 =item Can't undef active subroutine
654 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
655 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
656 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
660 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
661 as the main Perl stack.
663 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
665 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
666 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
667 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
668 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
670 =item Can't upgrade to undef
672 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
673 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
674 code calling sv_upgrade.
676 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
678 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
680 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
682 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
683 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
684 test the type of the reference, if need be.
686 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
688 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
689 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
690 to a matched substring is only valid as part of a regular expression pattern.
691 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
692 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
694 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
696 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
697 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
699 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
701 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
702 be a defined value. This helps to de-lurk some insidious errors.
704 =item Can't use delimiter brackets within expression
706 (F) The ${name} construct is for disambiguating identifiers in strings, not
709 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
711 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
712 not allowed, because the magic can only be tied to one location (namely
713 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
714 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
717 =item Can't use subscript on %s
719 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
720 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
721 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
723 =item Can't write to temp file for B<-e>: %s
725 (F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
726 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
728 =item Can't x= to readonly value
730 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
731 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
732 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
734 =item Cannot open temporary file
736 (F) The create routine failed for some reaon while trying to process
737 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
739 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
741 (W) A novice will sometimes say
745 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
746 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
748 =item Close on unopened file <%s>
750 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
752 =item connect() on closed fd
754 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
755 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
757 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
759 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
761 =item corrupted regexp pointers
763 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
764 expression compiler gave it.
766 =item corrupted regexp program
768 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
769 a valid magic number.
771 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
773 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
774 times than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
775 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
776 case it indicates something else.
778 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
780 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
782 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
784 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
785 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
787 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
789 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
790 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
791 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
792 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
793 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
794 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
795 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
796 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
799 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
801 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
803 =item do_study: out of memory
805 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
807 =item Duplicate free() ignored
809 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
812 =item elseif should be elsif
814 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
815 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
816 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
817 unlikely to be what you want.
819 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
821 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
822 The interpreter is immediately exited.
824 =item Error converting file specification %s
826 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Since Perl may have to deal with file
827 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
828 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
829 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
830 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
832 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
834 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
836 =item Exiting eval via %s
838 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
839 a goto, or a loop control statement.
841 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
843 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as a
844 a goto, or a loop control statement.
846 =item Exiting substitution via %s
848 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as a
849 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
851 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
853 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
854 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
855 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
856 the Perl source code is distressed.
858 =item fcntl is not implemented
860 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
863 =item Filehandle %s never opened
865 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
866 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
867 the FileHandle package.
869 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
871 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
872 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
873 "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you only
874 intended to write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
876 =item Filehandle only opened for input
878 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
879 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
880 "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you only
881 intended to write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
883 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
885 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
886 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
887 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
890 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
892 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
893 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
894 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
897 =item Format %s redefined
899 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
903 eval "format NAME =...";
906 =item Format not terminated
908 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
909 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
911 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
921 (or something like that).
923 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
925 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
927 =item gethostent not implemented
929 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
930 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
933 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
935 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
936 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
938 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
940 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
941 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
944 =item Glob not terminated
946 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
947 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
948 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
949 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
951 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
953 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables must
954 either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
955 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
957 =item goto must have label
959 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
960 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
962 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
964 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
965 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
966 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
968 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
970 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
971 is now heavily deprecated.
973 =item Identifier "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
975 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique identifiers. If you
976 had a good reason for having a unique identifier, then just mention it
977 again somehow to suppress the message.
979 =item Illegal division by zero
981 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
982 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
984 =item Illegal modulus zero
986 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
987 don't take to this kindly.
989 =item Illegal octal digit
991 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
993 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
995 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
996 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
998 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1000 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1001 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1002 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1003 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1004 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1005 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1006 for more information.
1008 =item Insecure directory in %s
1010 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1011 script if $ENV{PATH} contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1016 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1017 setgid script if $ENV{PATH} is derived from data supplied (or
1018 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1019 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1021 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1023 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1024 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, in order to determine
1025 whether the current call to C<exec> should be affect the current
1026 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
1027 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1028 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1029 and execute the specified command.
1031 =item internal disaster in regexp
1033 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1035 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1037 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1039 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1041 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1042 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1044 =item ioctl is not implemented
1046 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1047 strange for a machine that supports C.
1049 =item junk on end of regexp
1051 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1053 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1055 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1056 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1057 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1059 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1061 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1062 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1065 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1067 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1068 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1071 =item listen() on closed fd
1073 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1074 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1076 =item Literal @%s now requires backslash
1078 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1079 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was
1080 first used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and
1081 ambiguous instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by putting a
1082 backslash to indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array
1083 within the program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply
1084 assume that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1086 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1088 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1089 doesn't somehow point to a valid method. See L<perlovl>.
1091 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1093 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1094 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1095 ended earlier on the current line.
1097 =item Misplaced _ in number
1099 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1101 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1103 (F) Apparently you've been programming in csh too much. Variables are always
1104 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1105 one line to the next.
1107 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1109 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1110 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1112 =item Missing operator before %s?
1114 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1115 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1117 =item Missing right bracket
1119 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1120 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1123 =item Missing semicolon on previous line?
1125 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1126 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1127 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1129 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1131 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1132 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", since the compiler
1133 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1135 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1138 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1140 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1142 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1143 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1146 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1148 (F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1149 be created for some peculiar reason.
1151 =item Module name must be constant
1153 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1155 =item msg%s not implemented
1157 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1159 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1161 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like $foo[1,2,3]. They're written
1162 like $foo[1][2][3], as in C.
1164 =item Negative length
1166 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1167 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1169 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1171 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parens. So
1172 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1174 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, *?, +? and ?? appear
1175 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1179 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1180 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1182 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1184 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1185 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1186 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1189 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1191 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1193 =item No comma allowed after %s
1195 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1196 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1197 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1199 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1201 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1202 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither you
1203 want to pipe the output from this command.
1205 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1207 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1208 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1209 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1210 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1211 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1214 =item No dbm on this machine
1216 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1217 supply dbm nowadays, since Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1219 =item No DBsub routine
1221 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1222 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1223 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1224 ordinary subroutine call.
1226 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
1228 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1229 and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the
1230 file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1232 =item No input file after < on command line
1234 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1235 and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file from
1236 which to read data for stdin.
1238 =item No output file after > on command line
1240 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1241 and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither
1242 you wanted to redirect stdout.
1244 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
1246 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1247 and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the
1248 file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1250 =item No Perl script found in input
1252 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1253 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1255 =item No setregid available
1257 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1260 =item No setreuid available
1262 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1265 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1267 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1270 =item No such pipe open
1272 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1273 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1274 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1276 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1278 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1279 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1281 =item Not a CODE reference
1283 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1284 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1285 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1286 See also L<perlref>.
1288 =item Not a format reference
1290 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1291 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1293 =item Not a GLOB reference
1295 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "type glob" (that is,
1296 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1297 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1298 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1300 =item Not a HASH reference
1302 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1303 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1304 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1306 =item Not a perl script
1308 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1309 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1312 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1314 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1315 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1316 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1318 =item Not a subroutine reference
1320 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1321 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1322 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1323 See also L<perlref>.
1325 =item Not a subroutine reference in %OVERLOAD
1327 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1328 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<perlovl>.
1330 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1332 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1333 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1334 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1336 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1338 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1340 =item Not enough format arguments
1342 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1345 =item Null filename used
1347 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially since on many machines
1348 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1350 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1352 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1356 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1358 =item NULL regexp argument
1360 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it bigtime.
1362 =item NULL regexp parameter
1364 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1366 =item Odd number of elements in hash list
1368 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash list, which is odd,
1369 since hash lists come in key/value pairs.
1373 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1377 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1379 =item Operation `%s' %s: no method found,
1381 (F) An attempt was made to use an entry in an overloading table that
1382 somehow no longer points to a valid method. See L<perlovl>.
1384 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1386 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1387 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1388 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1389 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1390 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1392 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1394 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1395 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1397 =item Out of memory!
1399 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1400 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1404 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1407 =item panic: ck_grep
1409 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1411 =item panic: ck_split
1413 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1415 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1417 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1418 are in the savestack.
1422 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1423 it wasn't an eval context.
1425 =item panic: do_match
1427 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1429 =item panic: do_split
1431 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1433 =item panic: do_subst
1435 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1437 =item panic: do_trans
1439 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1443 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1444 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1446 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1448 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1450 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1452 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1456 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1457 it wasn't a block context.
1459 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1461 (P) A writable lexical variable became readonly somehow within the scope.
1463 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1465 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1466 invalid enum on the top of it.
1470 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1472 =item panic: mapstart
1474 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1476 =item panic: null array
1478 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1480 =item panic: pad_alloc
1482 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1483 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1485 =item panic: pad_free curpad
1487 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1488 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1490 =item panic: pad_free po
1492 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1494 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
1496 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1497 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1499 =item panic: pad_sv po
1501 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1503 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1505 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1506 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1508 =item panic: pad_swipe po
1510 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1512 =item panic: pp_iter
1514 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1516 =item panic: realloc
1518 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1520 =item panic: restartop
1522 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1523 didn't supply the destination.
1527 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1528 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
1530 =item panic: scan_num
1532 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
1534 =item panic: sv_insert
1536 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
1539 =item panic: top_env
1541 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
1545 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
1547 =item Parens missing around "%s" list
1549 (W) You said something like
1555 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
1557 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
1559 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
1561 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
1562 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
1563 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
1565 =item Permission denied
1567 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
1569 =item pid %d not a child
1571 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
1572 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
1573 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
1575 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
1577 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
1578 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
1580 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
1582 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
1583 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
1584 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
1585 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
1587 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
1589 (S) The old irregular construct
1593 is now misinterpreted as
1597 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
1598 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
1599 parens around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead of "||".
1601 =item print on closed filehandle %s
1603 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
1604 Check your logic flow.
1606 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
1608 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1609 Check your logic flow.
1611 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
1613 (W) The compiler found a bare word where it expected a conditional,
1614 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
1615 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
1619 =item Prototype mismatch: (%s) vs (%s)
1621 (S) The subroutine being defined had a predeclared (forward) declaration
1622 with a different function prototype.
1624 =item Read on closed filehandle <%s>
1626 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
1627 Check your logic flow.
1629 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
1631 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
1633 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
1635 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
1636 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
1637 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
1639 =item Recursive inheritance detected
1641 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
1642 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
1644 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
1646 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
1647 reference count of other than 1.
1649 =item regexp memory corruption
1651 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1652 expression compiler gave it.
1654 =item regexp out of space
1656 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
1658 =item regexp too big
1660 (F) The current implementation of regular expression uses shorts as
1661 address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
1662 the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
1663 Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
1664 way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
1666 =item Reversed %s= operator
1668 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
1669 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
1671 =item Runaway format
1673 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
1674 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
1675 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
1676 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
1677 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
1679 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
1681 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single value of
1682 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1683 The difference is that $foo[&bar] always behaves like a scalar, both when
1684 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while @foo[&bar] behaves
1685 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1686 subscript, which can do weird things if you're only expecting one subscript.
1688 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
1689 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, since
1690 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1693 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
1695 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script with its setuid
1696 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
1698 =item Search pattern not terminated
1700 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
1701 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1703 =item seek() on unopened file
1705 (W) You tried to use the seek() function on a filehandle that was either
1706 never opened or has been closed since.
1708 =item select not implemented
1710 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
1712 =item sem%s not implemented
1714 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
1716 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
1718 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
1719 that had previously been marked as free.
1721 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
1723 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
1724 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
1726 =item Send on closed socket
1728 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
1729 Check your logic flow.
1731 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
1733 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
1734 parenthesis. Embedded parens aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
1736 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
1738 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
1739 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
1741 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
1743 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
1746 =item setegid() not implemented
1748 (F) You tried to assign to $), and your operating system doesn't support
1749 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1752 =item seteuid() not implemented
1754 (F) You tried to assign to $>, and your operating system doesn't support
1755 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1758 =item setrgid() not implemented
1760 (F) You tried to assign to $(, and your operating system doesn't support
1761 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1764 =item setruid() not implemented
1766 (F) You tried to assign to $<, and your operating system doesn't support
1767 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1770 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
1772 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
1773 because the world might have written on it already.
1775 =item shm%s not implemented
1777 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
1779 =item shutdown() on closed fd
1781 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
1783 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined.
1785 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
1786 put it into the wrong package?
1788 =item sort is now a reserved word
1790 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
1791 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
1793 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
1795 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
1796 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
1797 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1799 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
1801 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
1802 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1806 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
1807 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
1808 See L<perlfunc/split>.
1810 =item Stat on unopened file <%s>
1812 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
1813 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has been closed since.
1815 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
1817 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
1818 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
1819 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
1820 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
1823 =item Subroutine %s redefined
1825 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
1829 eval "sub name { ... }";
1832 =item Substitution loop
1834 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
1835 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
1836 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
1837 L<perlop/"Quote and Quotelike Operators">.
1839 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
1841 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
1842 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1844 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
1846 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
1847 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1849 =item substr outside of string
1851 (W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a string.
1852 That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the length of
1853 the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
1855 =item suidperl is no longer needed since...
1857 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
1858 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
1862 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
1864 A keyword is misspelled.
1865 A semicolon is missing.
1867 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
1868 An opening or closing brace is missing.
1869 A closing quote is missing.
1871 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
1872 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
1873 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
1874 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
1875 before this, since Perl is good at understanding random input.
1876 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
1877 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
1878 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
1879 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
1881 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
1883 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
1884 instead of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
1887 =item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
1889 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm"
1890 or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
1892 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
1894 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1895 Check your logic flow.
1897 =item tell() on unopened file
1899 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
1900 never opened or has been closed since.
1902 =item Test on unopened file <%s>
1904 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
1905 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
1907 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
1909 (F) Assignment to $[ is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
1910 a compiler directive. You may only say one of
1919 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
1920 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
1922 =item The %s function is unimplemented
1924 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
1925 to the probings of Configure.
1927 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
1929 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
1930 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
1931 think the U.S. Govermnment thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
1932 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
1935 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
1937 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
1938 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
1939 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
1941 =item times not implemented
1943 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
1944 you're not running on Unix.
1946 =item Too few args to syscall
1948 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
1949 system call to call, silly dilly.
1955 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
1956 of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
1959 =item Too many args to syscall
1961 (F) Perl only supports a maximum of 14 args to syscall().
1963 =item Too many arguments for %s
1965 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
1967 =item trailing \ in regexp
1969 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
1972 =item Translation pattern not terminated
1974 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
1977 =item Translation replacement not terminated
1979 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
1982 =item truncate not implemented
1984 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
1985 Configure knows about.
1987 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
1989 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
1990 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or @{EXPR}. Hashes must be
1991 %NAME or %{EXPR}. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
1992 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
1994 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
1996 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, since octal literals
1997 always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
1999 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2001 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2003 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2005 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2006 contexts were entered and left.
2008 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2010 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2011 values were temporarily localized.
2013 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2015 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2016 were entered and left.
2018 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2020 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2021 scalars were allocated and freed.
2023 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2025 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2026 another package? See L<perlform>.
2028 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2030 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2031 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2033 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2035 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2036 has since been undefined.
2038 =item Undefined subroutine called
2040 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2041 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2043 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2045 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2046 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2048 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2050 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2051 another package? See L<perlform>.
2053 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2055 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2056 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2058 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2060 (F) There are no byteswapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2062 =item unmatched () in regexp
2064 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2065 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2066 the matching paren. See L<perlre>.
2068 =item Unmatched right bracket
2070 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2071 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2072 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2075 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2077 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2078 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2081 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2083 (W) You used a bare word that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2084 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2085 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2087 =item Unrecognized character \%03o ignored
2089 (S) A garbage character was found in the input, and ignored, in case it's
2090 a weird control character on an EBCDIC machine, or some such.
2092 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2094 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2095 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2097 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s
2099 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2100 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2101 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2103 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2105 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2106 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2107 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chop>.
2109 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2111 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2113 =item Unsupported function %s
2115 (F) This machines doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2116 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2118 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2120 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2121 least that's what Configure thought.
2123 =item Unterminated <> operator
2125 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2126 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2127 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2128 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2130 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2132 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined awk feature.
2133 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2135 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2137 (D) This variable magically turned on multiline pattern matching, both for
2138 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2139 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2140 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2142 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2144 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible only
2145 from C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2147 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2149 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2150 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2153 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
2155 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2156 wish to use a blank line as the terminator of the here-document.
2158 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2160 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2161 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2162 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2164 =item Use of uninitialized value
2166 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2167 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2168 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2170 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2172 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2173 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2174 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2175 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2176 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2177 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2181 when you meant to say
2183 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2185 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2186 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2191 when you should have said
2195 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2196 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2197 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2198 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2199 L<perlref> for more on this.
2201 =item Variable "%s" is not exported
2203 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2204 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2205 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2206 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2207 on the front of your variable.
2209 =item Variable syntax.
2211 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2212 of Perl. Check the <#!> line, or manually feed your script
2215 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly.
2217 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
2218 close(0. This usually indicates your filesystem ran out of disk space.
2220 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parens is ambiguous
2222 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2223 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2224 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2225 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2229 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
2233 but in actual fact, you got
2237 So put in parens to say what you really mean.
2239 =item Write on closed filehandle
2241 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2242 Check your logic flow.
2244 =item X outside of string
2246 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
2247 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2249 =item x outside of string
2251 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
2252 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2254 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
2256 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2258 =item Xsub called in sort
2260 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2262 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
2264 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
2265 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
2266 Use a filename instead.
2268 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
2270 (F) And you probably never will, since you probably don't have the
2271 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
2272 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
2273 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
2275 =item You need to quote "%s"
2277 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
2278 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
2279 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
2280 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
2282 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
2284 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
2285 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2286 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2288 =item \1 better written as $1
2290 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
2291 of backslashes is grandfathered on the righthand side of a
2292 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
2293 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
2294 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
2296 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
2298 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2299 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
2300 '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
2302 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
2304 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2305 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
2306 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
2307 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
2310 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";