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>.
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 messages 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 "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope
38 (W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectively
39 eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always
40 a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
41 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
44 =item "no" not allowed in expression
46 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
49 =item "use" not allowed in expression
51 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
54 =item % may only be used in unpack
56 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
57 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
58 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
60 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
62 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
63 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
64 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
66 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
68 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
73 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
75 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
80 or a hash slice, such as
82 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
83 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
85 =item %s did not return a true value
87 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
88 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
89 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
90 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
92 =item %s found where operator expected
94 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
95 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
96 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
97 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
99 =item %s had compilation errors
101 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
103 =item %s has too many errors
105 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
106 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
108 =item %s matches null string many times
110 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
111 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
113 =item %s never introduced
115 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
116 before it could possibly have been used.
120 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
122 =item %s: Command not found
124 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
125 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
128 =item %s: Expression syntax
130 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
131 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
134 =item %s: Undefined variable
136 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
137 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
142 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
143 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
146 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
148 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
149 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
150 the previous line just because you saw this message.
152 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
154 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
155 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
157 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
159 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
160 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
162 =item C<-p> destination: %s
164 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
165 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
166 redirected it with select().)
168 =item 500 Server error
172 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
174 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
175 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
177 =item @ outside of string
179 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
180 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
182 =item accept() on closed fd
184 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
185 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
187 =item Allocation too large: %lx
189 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
191 =item Allocation too large
193 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes.
195 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
197 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
198 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
199 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
200 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
201 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
202 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
204 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
206 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
208 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
210 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
211 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
212 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
214 =item Args must match #! line
216 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
217 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
218 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
219 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
221 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
223 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
224 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
225 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
227 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
229 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
230 is now heavily deprecated.
232 =item assertion botched: %s
234 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
236 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
238 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
240 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
242 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
243 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
244 know which context to supply to the right side.
246 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
248 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
249 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
252 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
254 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
255 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
256 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
257 that can no longer be found in the table.
259 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
261 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
262 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
263 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
264 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
267 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
269 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
271 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
273 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
274 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
275 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
276 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
277 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
278 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
280 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
282 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
283 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
284 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
285 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
286 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
289 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
291 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
292 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
293 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
295 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
297 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
298 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
299 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
300 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
302 =item Bad filehandle: %s
304 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
305 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
306 did it in another package.
308 =item Bad free() ignored
310 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
311 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
312 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
314 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
315 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
316 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
321 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
323 =item Bad name after %s::
325 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
326 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
335 $sym = "mypack::$var";
337 =item Bad symbol for array
339 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
340 wasn't a symbol table entry.
342 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
344 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
345 wasn't a symbol table entry.
347 =item Bad symbol for hash
349 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
350 wasn't a symbol table entry.
352 =item Badly placed ()'s
354 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
355 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
358 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
360 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
361 subroutine identifier, in curly braces or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
362 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
364 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
366 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
367 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
368 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
370 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
372 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
373 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
375 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
377 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
378 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
379 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
380 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
381 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
383 =item bind() on closed fd
385 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
386 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
388 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
390 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
392 =item Callback called exit
394 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
395 exited by calling exit.
397 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
399 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
400 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
401 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
402 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
404 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
406 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
407 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
409 =item Can't "last" outside a block
411 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
412 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
413 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
414 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
415 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
416 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
418 =item Can't "next" outside a block
420 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
421 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
422 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
423 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
424 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
426 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
428 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
429 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
430 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
431 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
432 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
434 =item Can't bless non-reference value
436 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
437 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
439 =item Can't break at that line
441 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
442 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
445 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
447 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
448 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
449 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
451 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
453 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
454 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
455 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
456 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
458 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
460 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
461 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
462 neither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)
463 Something like this will reproduce the error:
466 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
467 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
469 =item Can't chdir to %s
471 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
472 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
474 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
476 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
477 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
487 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
489 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
491 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
492 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
494 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
496 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
497 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
499 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
501 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
502 or other plumbing problems.
504 =item Can't declare %s in my
506 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
507 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
509 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
511 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
513 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
515 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
516 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
519 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
521 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
523 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
525 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
526 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
528 =item Can't do setegid!
530 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
533 =item Can't do seteuid!
535 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
537 =item Can't do setuid
539 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
540 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
541 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
542 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
543 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
544 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
546 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
548 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
549 without flags is emulated.
551 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
553 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
554 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
556 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
558 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
559 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
561 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
563 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
564 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
565 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
566 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
567 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
568 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
572 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
573 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
574 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
576 =item Can't execute %s
578 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
579 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
581 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
583 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
584 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
585 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
587 =item Can't find %s on PATH
589 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
592 =item Can't find label %s
594 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
595 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
597 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
599 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
600 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
601 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
603 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
605 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
606 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
607 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
611 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
613 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
615 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
616 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
617 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
618 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
619 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
620 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
621 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
622 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
623 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
624 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
625 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
626 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
627 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
628 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
630 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
632 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
633 can't retrieve its name for later use.
635 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
637 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
638 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
640 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
642 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
643 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
644 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
647 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
649 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
650 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
652 =item Can't localize through a reference
654 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
655 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
656 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
657 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
659 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
661 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
662 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
663 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
666 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
668 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
669 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
670 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
671 doing C<make install>.
673 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
675 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
676 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set the
677 PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra library
678 is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
679 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
681 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
683 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
684 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
685 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
687 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
689 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
692 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
694 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
696 =item Can't modify %s in %s
698 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
699 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
701 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
703 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
706 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
708 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
711 =item Can't open %s: %s
713 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
714 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
715 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
716 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
719 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
721 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
722 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
723 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
724 and then read it in under a different file handle.
726 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
728 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
729 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
730 command line for writing.
732 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
734 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
735 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
737 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
739 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
740 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
743 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
745 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
746 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
748 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
750 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
752 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
754 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
755 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
756 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
757 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
759 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
761 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
762 you don't have write permission to the directory.
764 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
766 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
767 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
769 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
771 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
774 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
776 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
777 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
779 =item Can't stat script "%s"
781 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
782 it open already. Bizarre.
784 =item Can't swap uid and euid
786 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
789 =item Can't take log of %g
791 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
792 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
793 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
794 the negative numbers.
796 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
798 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
799 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
800 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
802 =item Can't undef active subroutine
804 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
805 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
806 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
810 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
811 as the main Perl stack.
813 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
815 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
816 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
817 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
818 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
820 =item Can't upgrade to undef
822 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
823 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
824 code calling sv_upgrade.
826 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
828 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
829 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
830 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
832 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
834 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
835 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
836 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
837 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
840 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
842 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
844 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
846 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
847 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
848 test the type of the reference, if need be.
850 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
852 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
853 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
854 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
855 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
856 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
858 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
860 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
861 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
863 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
865 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
866 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
868 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
870 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
871 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
873 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
875 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
876 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
877 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
878 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
881 =item Can't use subscript on %s
883 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
884 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
885 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
887 =item Can't x= to read-only value
889 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
890 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
891 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
893 =item Cannot find an opnumber for "%s"
895 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
896 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
898 =item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
900 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
901 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
902 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
904 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
906 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
907 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
908 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
909 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
910 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
912 =item Character class syntax [: :] is reserved for future extensions
914 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
915 with "[:" and ending with ":]" is reserved for future extensions.
916 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
917 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
918 backslash: "\[:" and ":\]".
920 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
922 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
923 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
924 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
925 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
926 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
928 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
930 (W) A novice will sometimes say
934 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
935 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
937 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
939 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
941 =item Compilation failed in require
943 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
944 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
945 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
947 =item connect() on closed fd
949 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
950 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
952 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
954 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
955 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
958 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
960 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
961 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
964 =item Copy method did not return a reference
966 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
968 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
970 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
972 =item corrupted regexp pointers
974 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
975 expression compiler gave it.
977 =item corrupted regexp program
979 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
980 a valid magic number.
982 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
984 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
985 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
986 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
987 case it indicates something else.
989 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
991 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
992 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
993 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
995 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
997 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
999 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1001 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1002 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1006 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1007 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1009 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1011 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1012 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1013 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1014 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1015 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1016 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1017 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1018 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1021 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1023 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1025 =item do_study: out of memory
1027 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1029 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1031 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1034 =item elseif should be elsif
1036 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1037 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1038 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1039 unlikely to be what you want.
1041 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
1043 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1044 The interpreter is immediately exited.
1046 =item Error converting file specification %s
1048 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1049 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1050 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1051 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1052 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1054 =item Excessively long <> operator
1056 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1057 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1058 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1059 variable and glob that.
1061 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1063 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1065 =item Exiting eval via %s
1067 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1068 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1070 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1072 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1073 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1074 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1076 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1078 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1079 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1081 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1083 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1084 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1086 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1088 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1089 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1090 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1091 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p or 'MyPackage');
1093 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1095 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1096 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1097 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1098 the Perl source code is distressed.
1100 =item fcntl is not implemented
1102 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1103 PDP-11 or something?
1105 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1107 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1108 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1109 the FileHandle package.
1111 =item Filehandle %s opened for only input
1113 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1114 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1115 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1116 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1119 =item Filehandle opened for only input
1121 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1122 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1123 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1124 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1127 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1129 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1130 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1131 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1134 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1136 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1137 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1138 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1141 =item Format %s redefined
1143 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1147 eval "format NAME =...";
1150 =item Format not terminated
1152 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1153 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1155 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1165 (or something like that).
1167 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1169 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1171 =item gethostent not implemented
1173 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1174 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1177 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1179 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1180 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1182 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1184 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1185 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1188 =item Glob not terminated
1190 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1191 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1192 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1193 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1195 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1197 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1198 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1199 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1201 =item goto must have label
1203 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1204 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1206 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1208 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1209 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1210 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1212 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1214 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1215 is now heavily deprecated.
1217 =item Identifier too long
1219 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1220 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1221 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1222 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1224 =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
1226 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
1227 to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
1228 names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
1229 appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
1230 might directly modify logical name tables and introduce nonstandard names,
1231 or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
1233 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1235 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1236 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1237 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1239 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1240 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1241 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1242 properly converting the text file format.
1244 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1245 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1246 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1248 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1249 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1252 =item Illegal division by zero
1254 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1255 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1257 =item Illegal modulus zero
1259 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1260 don't take to this kindly.
1262 =item Illegal octal digit
1264 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1266 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
1268 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1269 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1271 =item Illegal hex digit ignored
1273 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F in a
1274 hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1275 before the illegal character.
1277 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1279 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1280 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1282 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1284 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1285 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1286 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1287 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1288 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1289 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1290 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1292 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1294 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1295 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1296 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1297 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1298 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1299 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1300 for more information.
1302 =item Insecure directory in %s
1304 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1305 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1310 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1311 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> is derived from data supplied (or
1312 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1313 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1315 =item Integer overflow in hex number
1317 (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
1318 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
1321 =item Integer overflow in octal number
1323 (S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
1324 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
1327 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1329 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1330 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1331 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1332 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
1333 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1334 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1335 and execute the specified command.
1337 =item internal disaster in regexp
1339 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1341 =item internal error: glob failed
1343 (P) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1344 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. This may mean that your csh (C shell) is
1345 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1346 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1347 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1348 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1349 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1350 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1352 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1354 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1356 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1358 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1359 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1361 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1363 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1364 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1366 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1368 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1369 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1372 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1374 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1375 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1378 =item ioctl is not implemented
1380 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1381 strange for a machine that supports C.
1383 =item junk on end of regexp
1385 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1387 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1389 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1390 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1391 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1393 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1395 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1396 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1399 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1401 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1402 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1405 =item listen() on closed fd
1407 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1408 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1410 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1412 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1413 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1415 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1417 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1418 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1419 ended earlier on the current line.
1421 =item Misplaced _ in number
1423 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1425 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1427 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1428 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1429 one line to the next.
1431 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1433 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1434 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1436 =item Missing operator before %s?
1438 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1439 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1441 =item Missing right bracket
1443 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1444 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1447 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1449 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1450 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1451 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1453 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1456 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1458 =item Modification of noncreatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1460 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1461 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1464 =item Modification of noncreatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1466 (F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1467 be created for some peculiar reason.
1469 =item Module name must be constant
1471 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1473 =item msg%s not implemented
1475 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1477 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1479 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1480 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1482 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1484 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1485 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1486 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
1487 provided for just this purpose.
1489 =item Negative length
1491 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1492 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1494 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1496 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1497 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1499 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1500 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1504 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1505 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1507 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1509 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1510 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1511 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1514 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1516 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1518 =item No comma allowed after %s
1520 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1521 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1522 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1524 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1525 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1526 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1527 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1528 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1529 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1530 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1531 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1532 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1533 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1534 this error was triggered?
1536 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1538 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1539 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1540 want to pipe the output from this command.
1542 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1544 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1545 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1546 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1547 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1548 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1551 =item No dbm on this machine
1553 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1554 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1556 =item No DBsub routine
1558 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1559 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1560 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1561 ordinary subroutine call.
1563 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1565 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1566 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1567 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1569 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1571 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1572 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1573 from which to read data for stdin.
1575 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1577 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1578 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1579 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1581 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1583 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1584 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1585 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1587 =item No Perl script found in input
1589 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1590 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1592 =item No setregid available
1594 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1597 =item No setreuid available
1599 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1602 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1604 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1607 =item No such pipe open
1609 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1610 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1611 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1613 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1615 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1616 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1618 =item Not a CODE reference
1620 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1621 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1622 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1623 See also L<perlref>.
1625 =item Not a format reference
1627 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1628 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1630 =item Not a GLOB reference
1632 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1633 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1634 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1635 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1637 =item Not a HASH reference
1639 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1640 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1641 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1643 =item Not a perl script
1645 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1646 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1649 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1651 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1652 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1653 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1655 =item Not a subroutine reference
1657 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1658 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1659 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1660 See also L<perlref>.
1662 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1664 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1665 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1667 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1669 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1670 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1671 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1673 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1675 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1677 =item Not enough format arguments
1679 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1682 =item Null filename used
1684 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1685 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1687 =item Null picture in formline
1689 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1690 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1691 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1693 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1695 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1699 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1701 =item NULL regexp argument
1703 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1705 =item NULL regexp parameter
1707 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1709 =item Number too long
1711 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
1712 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
1713 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
1714 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
1716 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
1718 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
1719 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
1721 =item Offset outside string
1723 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1724 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1725 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1726 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1730 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1734 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1736 =item Operation `%s': no method found,%s
1738 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1739 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1740 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1741 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1742 true. See L<overload>.
1744 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1746 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1747 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1748 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1749 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1750 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1752 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1754 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1755 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1757 =item Out of memory!
1759 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1760 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1762 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1763 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1764 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1765 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
1766 error is trappable I<once>.
1768 =item Out of memory during request for %s
1770 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1771 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1772 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1773 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1777 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1780 =item panic: ck_grep
1782 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1784 =item panic: ck_split
1786 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1788 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1790 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1791 are in the savestack.
1795 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1796 it wasn't an eval context.
1798 =item panic: do_match
1800 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1802 =item panic: do_split
1804 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1806 =item panic: do_subst
1808 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1810 =item panic: do_trans
1812 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1816 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
1820 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1821 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1823 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1825 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1827 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1829 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1833 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1834 it wasn't a block context.
1836 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1838 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
1840 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1842 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1843 invalid enum on the top of it.
1847 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1849 =item panic: mapstart
1851 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1853 =item panic: null array
1855 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1857 =item panic: pad_alloc
1859 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1860 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1862 =item panic: pad_free curpad
1864 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1865 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1867 =item panic: pad_free po
1869 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1871 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
1873 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1874 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1876 =item panic: pad_sv po
1878 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1880 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1882 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1883 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1885 =item panic: pad_swipe po
1887 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1889 =item panic: pp_iter
1891 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1893 =item panic: realloc
1895 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1897 =item panic: restartop
1899 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1900 didn't supply the destination.
1904 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1905 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
1907 =item panic: scan_num
1909 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
1911 =item panic: sv_insert
1913 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
1916 =item panic: top_env
1918 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
1922 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
1924 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
1926 (W) You said something like
1932 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
1934 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
1936 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
1938 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
1939 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
1940 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
1942 =item Permission denied
1944 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
1946 =item pid %d not a child
1948 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
1949 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
1950 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
1952 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
1954 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
1955 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
1957 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
1959 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
1960 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
1961 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
1962 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
1964 You probably wrote something like this:
1971 when you should have written this:
1978 If you really want comments, build your list the
1979 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
1983 'b', # another comment
1986 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
1988 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
1989 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
1990 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1993 You probably wrote something like this:
1997 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
1998 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2002 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2004 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2005 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2006 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2007 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2009 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2011 (S) The old irregular construct
2015 is now misinterpreted as
2019 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2020 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2021 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2024 =item print on closed filehandle %s
2026 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2027 Check your logic flow.
2029 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
2031 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2032 Check your logic flow.
2034 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2036 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2037 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2038 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2042 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2044 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2045 or defined with a different function prototype.
2047 =item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
2049 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2050 Check your logic flow.
2052 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2054 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2056 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2058 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2059 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2060 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2062 =item Recursive inheritance detected
2064 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2065 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2067 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2069 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2070 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2071 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2072 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2074 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2075 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2076 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2077 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2079 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2081 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2082 reference count of other than 1.
2084 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2086 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2087 could match an empty string.
2089 =item regexp memory corruption
2091 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2092 expression compiler gave it.
2094 =item regexp out of space
2096 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2098 =item regexp too big
2100 (F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
2101 address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
2102 the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
2103 Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
2104 way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
2106 =item Reversed %s= operator
2108 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2109 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2111 =item Runaway format
2113 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2114 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2115 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2116 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2117 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2119 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2121 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2122 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2123 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2124 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2125 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2126 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2128 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2129 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2130 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2133 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2135 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2136 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2137 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2138 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2139 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2140 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2142 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2143 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2144 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2147 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2149 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2150 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2152 =item Search pattern not terminated
2154 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2155 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2156 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2158 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2160 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2161 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2163 =item select not implemented
2165 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2167 =item sem%s not implemented
2169 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2171 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2173 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2174 that had previously been marked as free.
2176 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2178 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2179 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2181 =item Send on closed socket
2183 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2184 Check your logic flow.
2186 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2188 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2191 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2193 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2194 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2196 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2198 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2199 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2201 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2203 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2208 Also known as "500 Server error".
2210 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2212 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2213 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2214 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2215 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2216 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2217 for more information:
2219 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/idiots-guide.html
2220 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/perl-cgi-faq.html
2221 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2222 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2223 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2225 =item setegid() not implemented
2227 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2228 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2231 =item seteuid() not implemented
2233 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2234 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2237 =item setrgid() not implemented
2239 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2240 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2243 =item setruid() not implemented
2245 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2246 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2249 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2251 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2252 because the world might have written on it already.
2254 =item shm%s not implemented
2256 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2258 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2260 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2262 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2264 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2265 put it into the wrong package?
2267 =item sort is now a reserved word
2269 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2270 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2272 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2274 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2275 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2276 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2278 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2280 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2281 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2285 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2286 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2287 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2289 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2291 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2292 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2294 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2296 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2297 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2298 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2299 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2302 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2304 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2305 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2308 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2310 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2314 eval "sub name { ... }";
2317 =item Substitution loop
2319 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2320 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2321 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2322 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2324 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2326 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2327 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2328 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2330 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2332 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2333 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2334 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2336 =item substr outside of string
2338 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2339 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2340 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2341 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2342 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2344 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2346 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2347 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2351 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2353 A keyword is misspelled.
2354 A semicolon is missing.
2356 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2357 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2358 A closing quote is missing.
2360 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2361 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2362 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2363 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2364 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2365 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2366 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2367 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2368 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2370 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2372 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2373 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2376 =item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
2378 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm",
2379 or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
2381 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2383 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2384 Check your logic flow.
2386 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2388 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2389 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2391 =item tell() on unopened file
2393 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2394 never opened or has since been closed.
2396 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2398 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2399 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2401 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2403 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2404 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2413 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2414 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2416 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2418 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2419 to the probings of Configure.
2421 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2423 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2424 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2425 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2426 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2429 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2431 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2432 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2433 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2435 =item times not implemented
2437 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2438 you're not running on Unix.
2440 =item Too few args to syscall
2442 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2443 system call to call, silly dilly.
2445 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2447 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2448 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2449 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2450 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2453 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2454 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2455 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2456 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2458 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2459 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2461 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2463 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2464 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2465 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2471 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2472 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2475 =item Too many args to syscall
2477 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2479 =item Too many arguments for %s
2481 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2483 =item trailing \ in regexp
2485 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2488 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
2490 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2491 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
2492 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
2494 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
2496 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2499 =item truncate not implemented
2501 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2502 Configure knows about.
2504 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2506 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2507 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2508 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2509 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2511 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2513 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal literals
2514 always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2516 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2518 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2520 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2522 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2523 contexts were entered and left.
2525 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2527 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2528 values were temporarily localized.
2530 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2532 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2533 were entered and left.
2535 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2537 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2538 scalars were allocated and freed.
2540 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2542 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2543 another package? See L<perlform>.
2545 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2547 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2548 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2550 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2552 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2553 has since been undefined.
2555 =item Undefined subroutine called
2557 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2558 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2560 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2562 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2563 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2565 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2567 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2568 another package? See L<perlform>.
2570 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
2572 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
2573 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
2575 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2577 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2578 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2580 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2582 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2584 =item unmatched () in regexp
2586 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2587 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2588 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2590 =item Unmatched right bracket
2592 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2593 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2594 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2597 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2599 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2600 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2603 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2605 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2606 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2607 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2609 =item Unrecognized character %s
2611 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
2612 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
2613 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
2615 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2617 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2618 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2620 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
2622 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2623 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2624 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2626 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2628 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2629 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2630 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
2632 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2634 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2636 =item Unsupported function fork
2638 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
2640 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
2641 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
2642 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
2644 =item Unsupported function %s
2646 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2647 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2649 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2651 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2652 least that's what Configure thought.
2654 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
2656 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2657 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2658 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2659 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2661 =item Use of "$$<digit>" to mean "${$}<digit>" is deprecated
2663 (D) Perl versions before 5.004 misinterpreted any type marker followed
2664 by "$" and a digit. For example, "$$0" was incorrectly taken to mean
2665 "${$}0" instead of "${$0}". This bug is (mostly) fixed in Perl 5.004.
2667 However, the developers of Perl 5.004 could not fix this bug completely,
2668 because at least two widely-used modules depend on the old meaning of
2669 "$$0" in a string. So Perl 5.004 still interprets "$$<digit>" in the
2670 old (broken) way inside strings; but it generates this message as a
2671 warning. And in Perl 5.005, this special treatment will cease.
2673 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2675 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
2676 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2678 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2680 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
2681 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2682 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2683 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2685 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2687 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2688 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2690 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
2692 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2693 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
2695 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2697 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2698 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2699 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2701 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
2703 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
2704 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
2705 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
2706 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
2708 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
2709 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
2710 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
2711 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
2712 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
2714 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
2715 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
2716 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
2717 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
2719 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
2720 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
2721 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
2723 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2725 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2726 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2729 =item Use of uninitialized value
2731 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2732 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2733 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2735 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2737 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2738 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2739 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2740 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2741 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2742 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2746 when you meant to say
2748 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2750 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2751 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2756 when you should have said
2760 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2761 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2762 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2763 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2764 L<perlref> for more on this.
2766 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
2768 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
2769 valid when C<untie> was called.
2771 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
2773 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
2774 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
2775 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
2776 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
2777 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
2779 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
2781 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2782 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2783 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2784 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2785 on the front of your variable.
2787 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
2789 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
2790 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
2791 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
2792 the outermost subroutine. For example:
2794 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
2796 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
2797 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
2798 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
2799 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
2800 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
2801 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
2804 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
2805 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
2806 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
2807 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
2809 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
2811 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
2812 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
2814 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
2815 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
2816 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
2817 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
2818 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
2819 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
2821 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
2822 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
2823 will I<never> share the given variable.
2825 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
2826 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
2827 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
2828 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
2831 =item Variable syntax
2833 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2834 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2837 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2839 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2841 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2842 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2845 are supported and installed on your system.
2846 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2848 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2849 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2850 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
2851 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
2852 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
2853 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
2854 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
2855 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
2856 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2858 =item Warning: something's wrong
2860 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
2861 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
2863 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
2865 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
2866 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
2868 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
2870 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2871 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2872 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2873 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2877 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
2881 but in actual fact, you got
2885 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
2887 =item Write on closed filehandle
2889 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2890 Check your logic flow.
2892 =item X outside of string
2894 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
2895 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2897 =item x outside of string
2899 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
2900 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2902 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
2904 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2906 =item Xsub called in sort
2908 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2910 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
2912 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
2913 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
2914 Use a filename instead.
2916 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
2918 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
2919 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
2920 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
2921 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
2923 =item You need to quote "%s"
2925 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
2926 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
2927 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
2928 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
2930 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
2932 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
2933 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2934 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2936 =item \1 better written as $1
2938 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
2939 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
2940 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
2941 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
2942 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
2944 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
2946 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2947 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
2948 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
2950 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
2952 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2953 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
2954 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
2955 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
2958 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
2965 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2967 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2968 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2970 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2972 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2980 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
2981 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
2982 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2983 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
2985 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2987 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2988 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
2990 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2992 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2993 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2994 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2995 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"