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 (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
137 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
143 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
145 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
151 or a hash or array slice, such as:
153 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
154 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
156 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
158 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
159 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
162 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
164 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
165 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
166 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
168 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
170 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
171 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
172 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
173 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
174 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
175 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
177 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
179 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
180 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
182 =item assertion botched: %s
184 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
186 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
188 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
190 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
192 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
193 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
194 know which context to supply to the right side.
196 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
198 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
199 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
200 Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
201 created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
202 thread. See L<threads>.
204 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
206 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
207 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
209 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
211 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
212 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
213 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
219 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
221 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
222 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
225 bless $self, "$proto";
227 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
229 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
230 which is not in its key set.
232 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
234 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
235 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
237 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
239 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
240 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
241 outside any of those arenas.
243 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
245 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
246 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
247 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
248 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
250 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
252 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
253 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
254 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
255 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
258 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
260 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
262 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
264 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
265 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
266 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
267 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
268 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
269 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
272 =item Attempt to join self
274 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
275 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
276 to move the join() to some other thread.
278 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
280 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
281 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
282 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
283 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
284 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
287 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
289 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
290 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
291 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
294 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
296 (W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
297 can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
298 of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
300 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
303 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
305 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
306 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
307 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
309 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
311 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
312 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
313 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
314 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
316 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
318 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
319 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
320 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
322 =item Bad filehandle: %s
324 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
325 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
326 open(), or did it in another package.
328 =item Bad free() ignored
330 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
331 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
332 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
334 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
335 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
336 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
340 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
342 =item Badly placed ()'s
344 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
345 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
348 =item Bad name after %s::
350 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
351 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
360 $sym = "mypack::$var";
362 =item Bad realloc() ignored
364 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
365 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
366 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
368 =item Bad symbol for array
370 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
371 wasn't a symbol table entry.
373 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
375 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
376 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
379 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
381 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
382 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
384 =item Bad symbol for hash
386 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
387 wasn't a symbol table entry.
389 =item Bareword found in conditional
391 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
392 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
393 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
397 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
400 use constant TYPO => 1;
401 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
403 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
405 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
407 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
408 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
409 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
411 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
413 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
414 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
415 you need to predeclare a package?
417 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
419 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
420 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
423 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
425 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
426 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
427 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
428 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
429 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
431 =item \1 better written as $1
433 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
434 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
435 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
436 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
437 there are more than 9 backreferences.
439 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
441 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
442 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
443 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
445 =item bind() on closed socket %s
447 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
448 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
450 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
452 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
453 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
455 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
457 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
459 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
461 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
464 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
466 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
467 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
468 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
470 =item Callback called exit
472 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
473 exited by calling exit.
475 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
477 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
478 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
479 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
480 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
481 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
482 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
483 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
484 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
486 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
488 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
489 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
490 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
491 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
493 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
495 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
496 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
498 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
500 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
501 then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
502 triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
503 from that type of reference to a typeglob.
505 =item Cannot copy to %s in %s
507 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
508 be directly assigned not.
510 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
512 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
513 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
514 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
516 =item Can't bless non-reference value
518 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
519 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
521 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
523 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
524 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
526 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
528 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
530 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
532 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
533 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
534 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
536 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
538 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
539 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
540 like this will reproduce the error:
543 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
544 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
546 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
548 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
549 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
550 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
551 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
553 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
555 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
556 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
557 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
558 Something like this will reproduce the error:
561 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
562 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
564 =item Can't chdir to %s
566 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
567 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
569 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
571 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
574 =item Can't coerce array into hash
576 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
577 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
578 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
580 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
582 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
583 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
593 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
595 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
597 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
598 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
600 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
602 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
603 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
605 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
607 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
610 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
612 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
613 quotas or other plumbing problems.
615 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
617 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
618 class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration. The semantics may be
619 extended for other types of variables in future.
621 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
623 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
624 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
626 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
628 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
629 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
631 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
633 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
636 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
638 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
639 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
640 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
642 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
644 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
645 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
646 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
648 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
650 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
651 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
652 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
654 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
656 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
657 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
659 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
661 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
662 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
665 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
667 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
668 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
669 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
670 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
672 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
674 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
675 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
676 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
677 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
678 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
679 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
684 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
685 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
686 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
688 =item Can't execute %s
690 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
691 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
693 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
695 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
696 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
698 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
700 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
701 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
702 (remember that the names of character properties consist only of
703 alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
705 =item Can't find label %s
707 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
708 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
710 =item Can't find %s on PATH
712 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
715 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
717 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
718 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
719 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
721 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
723 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
724 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
725 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
727 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
729 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
730 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
731 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
733 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
735 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
736 example C<\p{Lu}> is all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
737 Unicode property, see L<perlunicode> for the list of known properties.
738 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
739 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
744 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
747 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
749 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
752 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
754 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
755 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
756 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
757 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
758 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
759 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
760 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
761 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
762 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
763 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
764 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
765 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
766 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
767 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
768 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
770 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
772 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
773 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
775 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
777 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
778 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
780 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
782 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
783 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
785 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
787 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
788 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
789 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
790 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
792 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
794 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
795 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
796 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
798 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
800 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
803 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
805 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
806 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
807 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
808 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
810 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
812 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
813 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
814 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
815 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
816 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
817 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
819 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
821 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
822 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
823 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
824 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
825 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
826 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
829 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
831 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
832 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
834 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
836 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
837 may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
838 incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
839 between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
840 extension was built against an older version of the library that is
841 installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
844 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
846 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
847 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
848 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
851 =item Can't localize through a reference
853 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
854 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
855 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
856 that $ref will still be a reference.
858 =item Can't locate %s
860 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
861 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
862 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
863 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
864 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
865 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
866 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
868 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
870 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
871 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
872 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
873 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
875 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
877 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
878 for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
879 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
881 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
883 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
884 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
885 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
887 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
889 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
890 doesn't seem to exist.
892 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
894 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
895 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
897 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
899 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
902 =item Can't modify %s in %s
904 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
905 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
907 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
909 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
912 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
914 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
915 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
917 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
919 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
922 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
924 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
925 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
926 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
927 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
928 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
929 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
931 =item Can't open %s: %s
933 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
934 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
935 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
936 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
939 =item Can't open a reference
941 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
942 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
946 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
947 open is not supported.
949 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
951 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
952 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
953 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
954 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
956 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
958 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
959 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
960 the command line for writing.
962 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
964 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
965 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
966 command line for reading.
968 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
970 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
971 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
972 the command line for writing.
974 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
976 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
977 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
980 =item Can't open perl script%s
982 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
984 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
985 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
986 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
988 =item Can't read CRTL environ
990 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
991 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
992 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
993 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
996 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
998 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
999 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1000 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1001 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1002 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1003 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1005 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1007 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1008 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1009 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1011 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1013 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1014 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1016 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1018 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1019 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1021 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1023 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1024 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1025 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1027 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1029 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1030 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1033 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1035 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1036 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1038 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1040 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1041 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1042 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1043 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1046 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1048 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1049 open already. Bizarre.
1051 =item Can't take log of %g
1053 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1054 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1055 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1058 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1060 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1061 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1062 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1064 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1066 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1067 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1068 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1072 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1073 as the main Perl stack.
1075 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1077 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1078 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1079 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1080 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1082 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1084 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1085 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1086 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1088 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1090 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1091 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1093 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1095 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1096 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1098 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1100 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1101 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1102 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1104 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1106 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1107 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1108 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1110 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1112 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1115 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1117 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1118 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1119 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1120 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1123 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1125 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1126 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1127 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1128 is inside a big-endian group.
1130 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1132 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1133 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1134 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1135 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1138 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1140 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1141 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1142 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1144 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1146 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1147 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1149 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1151 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1152 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1153 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1155 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1157 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1158 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1159 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1160 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1161 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1164 =item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
1166 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1167 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1168 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1169 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1171 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1173 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1174 references can be weakened.
1176 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1178 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1179 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1180 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1182 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1188 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1189 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1190 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1194 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1197 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1203 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1204 all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1207 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1209 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1215 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1216 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1217 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1219 pack("c", $x & 255);
1221 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1224 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1226 (W unpack) You tried something like
1228 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1230 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1231 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1232 modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1234 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1236 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1238 (W pack) You tried something like
1240 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1242 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1243 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1244 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1246 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1248 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1250 (W unpack) You tried something like
1252 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1254 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1255 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1256 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1258 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1260 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1262 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1264 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1266 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1267 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1269 =item Code missing after '/'
1271 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1272 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1274 =item %s: Command not found
1276 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1277 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1279 =item Compilation failed in require
1281 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1282 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1283 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1285 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1287 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1288 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1289 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1290 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1291 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1292 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1293 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1294 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1295 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1297 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1299 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1300 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1301 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1302 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1303 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1304 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1305 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1308 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1310 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1311 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1312 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1313 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1314 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1315 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1316 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1319 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1321 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1322 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1323 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1325 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1327 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1328 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1329 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1330 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1333 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1335 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1336 the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1337 forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
1341 =item Constant is not %s reference
1343 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1344 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1345 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1346 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1347 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1349 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1351 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1352 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1353 commentary and workarounds.
1355 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1357 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1358 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1361 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1363 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1364 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1366 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1368 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1370 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1372 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1373 expression compiler gave it.
1375 =item corrupted regexp program
1377 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1380 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1382 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1384 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1386 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1387 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1390 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1392 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1393 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1394 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1395 which case it indicates something else.
1397 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1399 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1400 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1401 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1403 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1405 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1406 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1407 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1409 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1411 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1412 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1414 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1416 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1417 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1418 that triggers this error.
1420 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1422 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1423 There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1424 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1425 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1426 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1427 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1428 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1430 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1434 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1436 Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1437 have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1439 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1441 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1443 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1444 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1445 to create a dangling reference.
1447 =item Did not produce a valid header
1451 =item %s did not return a true value
1453 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1454 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1455 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1456 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1458 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1460 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1463 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1465 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1466 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1469 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1471 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1472 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1477 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1478 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1480 =item Document contains no data
1484 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1486 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1487 define a C<$VERSION.>
1489 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1491 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1492 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1494 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1496 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1498 =item do_study: out of memory
1500 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1502 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1504 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1505 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1506 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1507 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1508 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1509 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1510 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1511 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1513 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1515 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1516 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1518 =item dump is not supported
1520 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1522 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1524 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1527 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1529 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1530 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1532 =item elseif should be elsif
1534 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1535 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1536 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1537 unlikely to be what you want.
1541 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1542 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1543 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1545 =item entering effective %s failed
1547 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1548 effective uids or gids failed.
1550 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1552 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1553 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1554 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1556 =item Error converting file specification %s
1558 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1559 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1560 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1561 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1562 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1564 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1566 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1567 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1568 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1570 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
1572 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1573 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1574 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1575 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1576 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1577 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1579 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1581 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1582 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1583 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1585 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1587 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1588 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1590 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1593 =item Excessively long <> operator
1595 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1596 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1597 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1598 variable and glob that.
1600 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1602 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1604 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1606 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1608 =item Exiting eval via %s
1610 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1611 goto, or a loop control statement.
1613 =item Exiting format via %s
1615 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1616 goto, or a loop control statement.
1618 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1620 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1621 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1622 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1624 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1626 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1627 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1629 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1631 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1632 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1634 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1636 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1637 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1638 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1639 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1641 =item %s: Expression syntax
1643 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1644 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1646 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1648 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1649 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1650 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1652 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1654 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1655 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1656 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1657 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1658 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1660 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1662 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1663 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1664 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1665 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1667 =item fcntl is not implemented
1669 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1670 PDP-11 or something?
1672 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1674 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1677 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1679 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1680 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1681 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1684 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1686 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1687 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1688 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1689 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1691 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1693 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1694 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1695 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1696 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1697 Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1698 (also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1700 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1702 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1703 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1706 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1708 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1709 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
1711 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1713 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1714 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1715 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1718 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1720 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1721 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1722 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1725 =item Format not terminated
1727 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1728 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1730 =item Format %s redefined
1732 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1735 no warnings 'redefine';
1736 eval "format NAME =...";
1739 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1749 (or something like that).
1751 =item %s found where operator expected
1753 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1754 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1755 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1756 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1758 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1760 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1762 =item gethostent not implemented
1764 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1765 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1768 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1770 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1771 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1773 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1775 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1776 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1778 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1780 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1781 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1782 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1784 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1786 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
1787 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
1788 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1789 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1791 =item glob failed (%s)
1793 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1794 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1795 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1796 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1797 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1798 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1799 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1800 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1801 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1802 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1803 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1805 =item Glob not terminated
1807 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1808 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1809 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1810 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1812 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1814 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1815 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1817 =item goto must have label
1819 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1820 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1822 =item ()-group starts with a count
1824 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
1825 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1826 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1828 =item %s had compilation errors
1830 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1832 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1834 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1835 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1836 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1838 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1840 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1841 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1843 =item %s has too many errors
1845 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1846 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1848 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1850 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1851 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1852 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1854 =item Identifier too long
1856 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1857 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1858 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1859 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1861 =item Ignoring %s in character class in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1863 (W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return multi-char
1864 or zero length sequences. When such an escape is used in a character class
1865 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
1866 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
1868 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1870 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1872 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1874 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1875 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1878 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1880 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1881 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1882 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1883 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1884 to your Perl administrator.
1886 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1888 (W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
1889 characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1891 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1893 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1894 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1896 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
1898 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
1900 =item Illegal division by zero
1902 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1903 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1906 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1908 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1909 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1910 number stopped before the illegal character.
1912 =item Illegal modulus zero
1914 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1915 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1917 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1919 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1920 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1922 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1924 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1926 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1928 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1929 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1931 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1933 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1934 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
1936 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1938 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1939 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1940 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1942 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1944 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1945 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1946 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1949 =item (in cleanup) %s
1951 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1952 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1953 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1954 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1955 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1957 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1958 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1960 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
1962 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
1963 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
1964 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
1966 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
1968 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
1969 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
1970 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
1972 =item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1974 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
1975 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
1976 either consume text or fail.
1978 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1981 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
1983 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
1984 of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
1985 C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
1986 as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
1988 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1990 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1991 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1992 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1993 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1994 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1995 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1996 L<perlsec> for more information.
1998 =item Insecure directory in %s
2000 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2001 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2002 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2005 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2007 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2008 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2009 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2010 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2011 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2013 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2015 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2016 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2017 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2018 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2019 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2020 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2021 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2022 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2025 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2027 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2028 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2029 integers for your architecture.
2031 =item Integer overflow in version
2033 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2034 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2035 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2036 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2037 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2040 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2042 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2043 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2046 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2048 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2049 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2050 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2051 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2052 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2053 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2055 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2057 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2058 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2061 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2063 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2064 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2065 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2066 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2068 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2070 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2071 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2073 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2075 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2076 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2078 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2080 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2081 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2083 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2085 (W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2086 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2087 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2088 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2089 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2090 escape was discovered.
2092 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2094 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2095 or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2096 (Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2098 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2100 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2101 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2102 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2103 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2104 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2106 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2108 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2109 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2111 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2113 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2114 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2115 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2118 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2120 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2121 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2122 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2123 list was terminated too soon.
2125 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2127 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2128 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2129 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2132 =item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
2134 (F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
2135 that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
2138 =item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
2140 (F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
2141 See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
2143 =item ioctl is not implemented
2145 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2146 strange for a machine that supports C.
2148 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2150 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2151 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2153 =item IO layers (like "%s") unavailable
2155 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2156 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2159 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2161 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2162 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2164 =item $* is no longer supported
2166 (S deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
2167 been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2168 C<//m> and C<//s> regexp modifiers instead.
2170 =item $# is no longer supported
2172 (S deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
2173 been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2174 printf/sprintf functions instead.
2176 =item `%s' is not a code reference
2178 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2179 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
2182 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2184 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2187 =item junk on end of regexp
2189 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2191 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2193 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2194 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2197 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2199 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2200 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2203 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2205 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2206 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2209 =item leaving effective %s failed
2211 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2212 effective uids or gids failed.
2214 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2216 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2217 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2218 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2220 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2222 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2223 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2226 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2228 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2229 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2231 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2233 (W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2234 for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2235 hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2236 because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2237 are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2238 You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2240 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
2242 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2243 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2244 instead on the filehandle.)
2246 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2248 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2249 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2250 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2252 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2254 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2255 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2257 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2259 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2260 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2262 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2264 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2271 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2272 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2273 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2274 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2276 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2278 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2279 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2280 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2281 when the function is called.
2283 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2285 (S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2286 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2288 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2289 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2290 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2292 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2293 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2294 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2297 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2299 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2301 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2302 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2304 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2306 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2307 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2309 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2311 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2312 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2314 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2316 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2317 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2319 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%s) exceeded
2321 (F) Perl aborted due to a too important number of signals pending. This
2322 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2323 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2324 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2325 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2327 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2329 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2330 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2331 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2334 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2336 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2337 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2340 =item % may not be used in pack
2342 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2343 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2344 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2346 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2348 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2349 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2351 =item Method %s not permitted
2355 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2357 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2358 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2359 ended earlier on the current line.
2361 =item Misplaced _ in number
2363 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2364 separate two digits.
2366 =item Missing argument to -%c
2368 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2369 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2371 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
2373 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2374 double-quotish context.
2376 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2378 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2379 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2381 =item Missing command in piped open
2383 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2384 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2387 =item Missing control char name in \c
2389 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2392 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2394 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2395 they have a name with which they can be found.
2397 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2399 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2400 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2401 can vary from one line to the next.
2403 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2405 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2406 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2408 =item Missing right brace on %s
2410 (F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
2412 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2414 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2415 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2418 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2420 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2421 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2422 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2424 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2426 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2427 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2428 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2430 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2433 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2435 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2436 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2439 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2440 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2443 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2445 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2446 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2449 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2451 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2452 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2454 =item Module name must be constant
2456 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2458 =item Module name required with -%c option
2460 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2461 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2462 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2464 =item More than one argument to open
2466 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2467 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2468 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2469 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2471 =item msg%s not implemented
2473 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2475 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2477 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2478 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2480 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2482 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2483 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2484 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2486 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2488 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2491 =item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
2493 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2494 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2495 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2497 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2499 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2500 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2501 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2502 provided for this purpose.
2504 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2505 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2506 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2507 will not trigger this warning.
2509 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2511 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2512 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2514 =item Negative length
2516 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2517 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2519 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2521 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2522 greater than or equal to zero.
2524 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2526 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2527 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2528 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2530 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2531 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2533 =item %s never introduced
2535 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2536 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2538 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2540 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2541 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2544 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2546 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2547 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2548 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2549 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2551 =item No comma allowed after %s
2553 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2554 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2555 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2557 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2558 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2559 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2560 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2561 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2562 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2563 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2564 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2565 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2566 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2567 this error was triggered?
2569 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2571 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2572 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2573 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2575 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2577 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2578 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2579 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2582 =item No dbm on this machine
2584 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2585 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2587 =item No DB::sub routine defined
2589 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2590 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2591 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2592 of each ordinary subroutine call.
2594 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2596 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2598 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2600 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2601 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2602 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2604 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2606 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2607 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2609 =item No input file after < on command line
2611 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2612 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2613 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2617 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2618 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2620 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2622 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2623 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2624 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2625 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2627 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2629 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2630 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2632 =item No output file after > on command line
2634 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2635 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2636 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2638 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2640 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2641 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2642 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2644 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2646 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2647 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2648 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2650 =item No Perl script found in input
2652 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2653 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2655 =item No setregid available
2657 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2660 =item No setreuid available
2662 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2665 =item No %s specified for -%c
2667 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2668 you haven't specified one.
2670 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2672 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2673 but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2674 package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2676 =item No such class %s
2678 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2679 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2681 =item No such hook: %s
2683 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl. Currently, Perl
2684 accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks
2686 =item No such pipe open
2688 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2689 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2690 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2692 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2694 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2695 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2696 names on your system.
2698 =item Not a CODE reference
2700 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2701 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2702 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2705 =item Not a format reference
2707 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2708 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2710 =item Not a GLOB reference
2712 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2713 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2714 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2715 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2717 =item Not a HASH reference
2719 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2720 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2721 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2723 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2725 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2726 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2727 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2729 =item Not a perl script
2731 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2732 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2735 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2737 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2738 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2739 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2741 =item Not a subroutine reference
2743 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2744 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2745 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2748 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2750 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2751 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2753 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2755 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2757 =item Not enough format arguments
2759 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2760 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2764 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2765 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2768 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2770 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2771 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2772 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2773 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2774 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2776 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
2778 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
2779 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
2780 select. See L<perlfunc/select>
2782 =item Null filename used
2784 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2785 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2787 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2789 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2792 =item Null picture in formline
2794 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2795 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2796 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2800 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2802 =item NULL regexp argument
2804 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2806 =item NULL regexp parameter
2808 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2810 =item Number too long
2812 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2813 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2814 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2815 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2818 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2820 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2821 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2824 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2826 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2827 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2828 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2830 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2832 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2834 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2835 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
2837 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2839 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2840 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2842 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2844 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2845 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2847 =item Offset outside string
2849 (F, W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
2850 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
2851 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
2852 take place when going past the end of the string when either
2853 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
2854 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
2857 =item %s() on unopened %s
2859 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2860 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2861 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2863 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2865 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2866 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2870 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2874 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2876 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
2878 (W io deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
2879 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
2880 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
2883 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
2885 (W io deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
2886 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
2887 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
2890 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
2892 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2893 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2894 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2895 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2897 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2899 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2900 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2901 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2902 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2905 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2907 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2908 in the current lexical scope.
2910 =item Out of memory!
2912 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2913 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2914 no option but to exit immediately.
2916 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
2917 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
2918 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
2919 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
2920 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
2922 =item Out of memory during %s extend
2924 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
2925 the largest possible memory allocation.
2927 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2929 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2930 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2931 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2932 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2934 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2936 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2937 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2940 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2941 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2942 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2943 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2944 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2945 where the failed request happened.
2947 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2949 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2950 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2951 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2953 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2955 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2956 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2959 =item '.' outside of string in pack
2961 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
2962 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
2964 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
2966 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2967 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2969 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
2971 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2972 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
2973 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2975 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2977 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2978 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2979 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2980 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2982 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
2984 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2985 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2989 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2990 page. See L<perlform>.
2994 (P) An internal error.
2996 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
2998 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
2999 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3000 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3001 enter this branch on this platform.
3003 =item panic: ck_grep
3005 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3007 =item panic: ck_split
3009 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3011 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3013 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3014 there are in the savestack.
3016 =item panic: del_backref
3018 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3021 =item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3023 (P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3024 last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3025 an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3026 a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3030 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3031 it wasn't an eval context.
3033 =item panic: do_subst
3035 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3038 =item panic: do_trans_%s
3040 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
3043 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3045 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
3050 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3054 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3055 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3057 =item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3059 (P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
3060 but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3061 contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3062 adds a new object to the hash.
3064 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3066 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3068 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3070 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3072 =item panic: kid popen errno read
3074 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3078 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3079 it wasn't a block context.
3081 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3083 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3086 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3088 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3089 invalid enum on the top of it.
3091 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3093 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3094 references to an object.
3098 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3100 =item panic: memory wrap
3102 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3104 =item panic: pad_alloc
3106 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3107 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3109 =item panic: pad_free curpad
3111 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3112 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3114 =item panic: pad_free po
3116 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3118 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
3120 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3121 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3123 =item panic: pad_sv po
3125 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3127 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3129 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3130 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3132 =item panic: pad_swipe po
3134 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3136 =item panic: pp_iter
3138 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3140 =item panic: pp_match%s
3142 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3145 =item panic: pp_split
3147 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3149 =item panic: realloc
3151 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3153 =item panic: restartop
3155 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3156 didn't supply the destination.
3160 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3161 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3163 =item panic: scan_num
3165 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3167 =item panic: sv_chop %s
3169 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3170 scalar's string buffer.
3172 =item panic: sv_insert
3174 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3177 =item panic: top_env
3179 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
3181 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3183 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3186 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3188 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3189 to even) byte length.
3193 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3195 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3197 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3198 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3199 nesting limit is exceeded.
3201 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3204 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3206 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3212 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3214 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
3216 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3218 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3219 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3220 redirected it with select().)
3222 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3224 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3225 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3226 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3228 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3230 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3231 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3232 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3233 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3235 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3237 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3238 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3239 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3241 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3243 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3244 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3246 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3248 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3250 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3252 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3254 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3255 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3258 are supported and installed on your system.
3259 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3261 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3262 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3263 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3264 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3265 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3266 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3267 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3268 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3269 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3270 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3272 =item pid %x not a child
3274 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3275 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3276 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3278 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3280 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3282 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3284 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3285 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3286 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3287 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3288 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3290 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3292 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3293 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3295 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3297 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3298 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3299 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3300 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3301 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3302 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3304 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3306 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3307 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3308 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3309 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3310 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3311 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3313 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3315 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3316 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3317 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3318 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3319 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3320 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3322 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3324 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3325 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3326 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3327 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3329 You probably wrote something like this:
3336 when you should have written this:
3343 If you really want comments, build your list the
3344 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3348 'b', # another comment
3351 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3353 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3354 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3355 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3358 You probably wrote something like this:
3362 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3363 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3367 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3369 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3370 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3371 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3372 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3374 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3376 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3377 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3379 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3381 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3382 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3383 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3384 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3386 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3388 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3389 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3390 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3391 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3393 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3395 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3396 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
3397 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
3398 followed by the word 'bar'.
3400 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3401 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3403 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3404 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3405 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3407 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
3409 (D deprecated) You have written something like this:
3413 use attrs qw(locked);
3416 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
3422 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
3423 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
3425 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3427 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3431 is now misinterpreted as
3435 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3436 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3437 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3440 =item Premature end of script headers
3444 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3446 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3447 before now. Check your control flow.
3449 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3451 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3452 before now. Check your control flow.
3454 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3456 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3457 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3458 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3459 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3462 =item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3464 (W syntax) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is useless,
3465 since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3467 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3469 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3470 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3472 =item Prototype not terminated
3474 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3477 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3479 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3480 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3481 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3483 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3485 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3486 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3487 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3489 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3491 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3492 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3493 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3494 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3495 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3497 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3500 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3502 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3503 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3504 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3505 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3507 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3509 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3510 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3512 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3514 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3515 before now. Check your control flow.
3517 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3519 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3521 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3523 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3525 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
3527 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3529 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3531 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3534 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3536 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3537 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3538 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3540 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3542 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3543 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3544 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
3546 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3548 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3549 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3552 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3554 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3555 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3556 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3557 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3559 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3560 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3561 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3562 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3564 =item Reference is already weak
3566 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3567 Doing so has no effect.
3569 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3571 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3572 a reference count of other than 1.
3574 =item Reference to invalid group 0
3576 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
3577 capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
3578 backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
3579 backreferences), but using 0 does not make sense.
3581 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3583 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3584 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3585 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3586 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
3588 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3591 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3593 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
3594 not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
3595 where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
3597 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3600 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3602 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3603 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3604 as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3605 correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3607 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3610 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3612 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3613 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3614 of the C<....> part.
3616 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3619 =item regexp memory corruption
3621 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3622 expression compiler gave it.
3624 =item Regexp out of space
3626 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3629 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3631 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
3632 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3633 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3635 =item Replacement list is longer than search list
3637 (W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
3638 search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
3641 =item Reversed %s= operator
3643 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3644 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3646 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3648 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
3649 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3651 =item Runaway format
3653 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3654 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3655 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3656 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3657 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3659 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3661 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3662 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3663 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3664 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3666 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3668 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3669 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3670 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3671 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3672 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3673 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3674 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3676 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3677 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3678 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3681 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3683 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3684 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3685 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3686 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3687 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3688 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3689 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3691 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3692 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3693 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3696 =item Search pattern not terminated
3698 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3699 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3700 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3702 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
3703 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3704 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3705 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3707 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
3709 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
3712 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
3713 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
3714 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
3715 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
3717 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3719 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3720 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3722 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3724 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
3725 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3727 =item select not implemented
3729 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3731 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3733 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3734 the current implementation.
3736 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3738 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3739 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3741 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3743 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3744 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3746 =item sem%s not implemented
3748 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3750 =item send() on closed socket %s
3752 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3753 before now. Check your control flow.
3755 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3757 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3758 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3761 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3763 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3764 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3765 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3767 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3769 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3770 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3771 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3773 =item Sequence \\%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3775 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
3776 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
3778 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3780 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3781 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3782 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3785 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3787 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3788 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3789 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3792 =item 500 Server error
3798 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3799 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3800 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3801 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3802 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3803 produce a valid header".
3805 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3807 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3808 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3809 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3810 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3811 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3812 Please see the following for more information:
3814 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3815 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3816 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
3818 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3820 =item setegid() not implemented
3822 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3823 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3826 =item seteuid() not implemented
3828 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3829 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3832 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3834 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3835 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3838 =item setrgid() not implemented
3840 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3841 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3844 =item setruid() not implemented
3846 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3847 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3850 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3852 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3853 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3854 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3856 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3858 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3859 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3861 =item Setuid script not plain file
3863 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
3864 but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
3866 =item shm%s not implemented
3868 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3870 =item !=~ should be !~
3872 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
3873 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
3874 operators: probably not what you intended.
3876 =item <> should be quotes
3878 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3881 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3883 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3884 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3885 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3886 probably not what you had in mind.
3888 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3890 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3893 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3895 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3896 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3898 =item sort is now a reserved word
3900 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3901 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3903 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3905 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3906 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3907 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3909 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3911 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3912 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3914 =item splice() offset past end of array
3916 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
3917 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
3918 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
3919 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
3924 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3925 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3926 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3928 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3930 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3931 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3932 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3933 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3936 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3938 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3939 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3941 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s"
3943 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3944 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3945 C<can> may break this.
3947 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3949 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3952 no warnings 'redefine';
3953 eval "sub name { ... }";
3956 =item Substitution loop
3958 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3959 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3960 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3961 L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
3963 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3965 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3966 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3967 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3969 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3971 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3972 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3973 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3975 =item substr outside of string
3977 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3978 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3979 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3980 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3981 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3983 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
3985 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
3986 inferior to its current type.
3988 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3990 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3991 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3992 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3993 clustering parentheses:
3995 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3997 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3998 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4000 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4002 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
4003 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4004 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4006 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
4008 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4009 and effective uids or gids.
4013 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4017 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4019 A keyword is misspelled.
4020 A semicolon is missing.
4022 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4023 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4024 A closing quote is missing.
4026 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4027 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4028 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4029 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
4030 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
4031 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4032 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4033 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
4034 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
4037 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4039 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4040 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4043 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4045 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4046 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4047 or "my $var" or "our $var".
4049 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4051 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4053 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4055 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4057 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
4059 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4060 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4061 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4062 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
4064 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
4066 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4067 before now. Check your control flow.
4069 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4071 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4072 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4074 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4076 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4077 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
4079 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
4081 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4082 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4084 =item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4086 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4087 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4089 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
4091 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4092 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4101 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4102 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
4104 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
4106 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4107 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
4108 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
4109 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4112 =item The %s function is unimplemented
4114 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4115 to the probings of Configure.
4117 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
4119 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4120 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4121 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4124 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4126 (F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
4128 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
4130 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4132 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
4133 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4134 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4135 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4136 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4137 target of the change to
4138 %ENV which produced the warning.
4140 =item thread failed to start: %s
4142 (W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
4144 =item times not implemented
4146 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4147 suspect you're not running on Unix.
4149 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4151 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4152 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
4153 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4154 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4157 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4158 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
4159 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
4160 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
4162 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4163 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
4165 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4167 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4168 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4169 specified an illegal mapping.
4170 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4172 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4174 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
4176 =item Too few args to syscall
4178 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4179 system call to call, silly dilly.
4181 =item Too late for "-%s" option
4183 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4184 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option. This is an error because those options
4185 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4187 =item Too late to run %s block
4189 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4190 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
4191 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4192 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4195 =item Too many args to syscall
4197 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
4199 =item Too many arguments for %s
4201 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4205 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4206 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4210 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4211 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4213 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
4215 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4216 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
4218 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
4220 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
4221 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4222 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
4224 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
4226 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4227 y/// or y[][] construct.
4229 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4231 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4232 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4234 =item truncate not implemented
4236 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4237 Configure knows about.
4239 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4241 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
4242 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4243 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
4244 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4246 =item umask not implemented
4248 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4249 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
4251 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4253 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4255 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4257 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4258 many execution contexts were entered and left.
4260 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4262 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4263 many values were temporarily localized.
4265 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4267 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4268 many blocks were entered and left.
4270 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4272 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4273 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
4275 =item Undefined format "%s" called
4277 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4278 another package? See L<perlform>.
4280 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4282 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4283 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4285 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4287 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4288 since been undefined.
4290 =item Undefined subroutine called
4292 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4293 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4295 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
4297 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4298 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4300 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
4302 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4303 another package? See L<perlform>.
4305 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4307 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4308 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4311 =item %s: Undefined variable
4313 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4314 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4316 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4318 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4319 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4321 =item Unicode character %s is illegal
4323 (W utf8) Certain Unicode characters have been designated off-limits by
4324 the Unicode standard and should not be generated. If you really know
4325 what you are doing you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4327 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
4329 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4332 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4334 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
4335 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
4336 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
4338 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4340 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4341 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4342 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4343 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4344 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4345 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4347 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4349 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4350 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4351 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4352 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
4354 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4356 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4358 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4360 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4361 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4362 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4363 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4364 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4367 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4368 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4370 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4372 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4373 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4375 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4377 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4378 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4380 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4382 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4383 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4385 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4386 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
4388 =item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4390 (F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4391 after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4392 L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4396 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4398 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
4399 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
4400 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4401 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4403 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4405 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
4406 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4407 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4408 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4410 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
4412 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4413 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4414 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4415 you were last editing.
4417 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4419 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4420 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4421 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4424 =item Unrecognized character %s in column %d
4426 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
4427 in your Perl script (or eval) at the specified column. Perhaps you tried
4428 to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
4430 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4432 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4433 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4434 understood literally.
4435 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4436 escape was discovered.
4438 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
4440 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4441 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally.
4443 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4445 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4446 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally.
4447 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4448 escape was discovered.
4450 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4452 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4453 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4456 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
4458 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4459 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4460 bad switch on your behalf.)
4462 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4464 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4465 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
4466 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
4468 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4470 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4472 =item Unsupported function %s
4474 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4475 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4477 =item Unsupported function fork
4479 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4481 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4482 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4483 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
4485 =item Unsupported script encoding %s
4487 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
4488 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
4490 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4492 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4493 least that's what Configure thought.
4495 =item Unterminated attribute list
4497 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4498 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4499 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4500 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
4502 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4504 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4505 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
4506 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4507 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4509 =item Unterminated compressed integer
4511 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4512 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4513 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4515 =item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4517 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
4518 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4520 =item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4522 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
4523 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4525 =item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4527 (F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
4528 a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
4530 =item Unterminated <> operator
4532 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
4533 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4534 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4535 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
4537 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
4539 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4540 still valid when C<untie> was called.
4542 =item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4544 (F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4545 See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4547 =item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4549 (F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4550 See L<Win32> for more information.
4552 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4554 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4555 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
4557 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
4561 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
4563 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4564 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4566 =item Useless localization of %s
4568 (W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4569 legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4570 some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4572 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4574 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4575 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
4577 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
4581 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
4583 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4584 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4586 =item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
4588 (W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
4589 same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
4590 about the /d modifier.
4592 =item Useless use of %s in void context
4594 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
4595 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4596 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4597 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4598 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4599 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4604 when you meant to say
4606 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4608 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4609 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4614 when you should have said
4618 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4619 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4620 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4621 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4622 L<perlref> for more on this.
4624 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4625 since they are often used in statements like
4627 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
4629 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4632 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
4634 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4636 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4638 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4642 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4644 =item Useless use of %s with no values
4646 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
4647 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4648 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4649 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4650 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4651 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4653 =item "use" not allowed in expression
4655 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4656 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4658 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4660 (D deprecated, W syntax) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
4661 form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4663 =item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
4665 (D deprecated, W syntax) The values you give to a format should be
4666 separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
4668 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4670 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4671 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4672 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4675 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4676 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4678 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4680 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4681 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4683 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4685 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4686 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4687 used. (This may change in the future.)
4689 =item Use of freed value in iteration
4691 (F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
4692 This error is typically caused by code like the following:
4695 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
4697 You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
4698 For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
4699 reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
4700 middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
4702 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4704 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4705 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4707 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
4709 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4710 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4711 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
4713 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
4715 (D deprecated, W syntax) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you
4716 clobber a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
4717 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
4719 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4721 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4722 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4723 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4724 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4727 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4728 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4729 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4730 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4733 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
4734 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4735 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4736 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4739 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4740 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
4741 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
4743 =item Use of octal value above 377 is deprecated
4745 (D deprecated, W regexp) There is a constant in the regular expression whose
4746 value is interpeted by Perl as octal and larger than 377 (255 decimal, 0xFF
4747 hex). Perl may take this to mean different things depending on the rest of
4748 the regular expression. If you meant such an octal value, convert it to
4749 hexadecimal and use C<\xHH> or C<\x{HH}> instead. If you meant to have
4750 part of it mean a backreference, use C<\g> for that. See L<perlre>.
4752 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4754 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4755 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4757 =item Use of %s is deprecated
4759 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
4760 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4761 old way has bad side effects.
4763 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4765 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4766 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4767 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4769 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4771 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4772 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4773 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4776 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
4778 (W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
4779 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4780 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
4782 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
4783 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4784 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
4785 operators and then you assumably know what you are doing.
4787 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4789 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4790 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4791 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4792 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4793 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4794 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
4796 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
4798 (W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
4799 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
4800 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
4801 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
4803 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
4805 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
4806 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
4807 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
4809 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
4810 name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
4811 do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
4812 in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
4813 displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
4814 program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
4815 . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
4816 even though there is no C<.> in your program.
4818 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
4820 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
4821 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
4822 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
4823 be removed in a future version.
4825 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
4827 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
4828 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
4829 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
4830 removed in a future version.
4832 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
4834 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of an UTF-16 surrogate by
4835 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
4836 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
4837 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
4838 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
4839 character. If you really know what you are doing you can turn off
4840 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4842 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
4844 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
4845 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
4846 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
4847 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
4848 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
4849 C<defined> operator.
4851 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
4853 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
4854 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
4855 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
4858 =item Variable "%s" is not available
4860 (W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
4861 attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
4862 This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
4863 declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
4864 (Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
4865 subs are created at run-time.) For example,
4867 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
4869 At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
4870 since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
4871 the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
4872 now been created and is live:
4874 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
4876 The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
4877 gone out of scope, for example,
4885 Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
4886 executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
4888 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
4890 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
4891 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
4892 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
4893 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
4894 front of your variable.
4896 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
4898 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
4899 known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
4901 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
4903 (W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the current
4904 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
4905 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
4906 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
4907 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
4909 =item Variable syntax
4911 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4912 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4915 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4917 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
4918 lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
4920 When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
4921 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4922 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4923 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4924 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4925 variable will no longer be shared.
4927 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4928 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
4929 reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
4930 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
4932 =item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4934 (F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an argument
4935 or check that you are using the right verb.
4937 =item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4939 (F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
4940 argument or check that you are using the right verb.
4942 =item Version number must be a constant number
4944 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4945 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4948 =item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
4950 (W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
4953 =item Warning: something's wrong
4955 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
4956 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
4958 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
4960 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4961 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4964 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
4966 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4967 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4968 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4969 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
4973 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4977 but in actual fact, you got
4981 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
4983 =item Wide character in %s
4985 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
4986 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
4987 way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
4988 output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
4989 warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
4990 cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
4991 filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4993 =item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
4995 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
4996 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
4997 determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
4998 of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
5000 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
5002 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
5003 before now. Check your control flow.
5005 =item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
5007 When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
5008 into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5009 this encoding, for example
5011 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5013 if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5015 =item 'X' outside of string
5017 (F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5018 the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5020 =item 'x' outside of string in unpack
5022 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5023 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5025 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5027 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
5028 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
5029 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
5032 =item You need to quote "%s"
5034 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5035 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5036 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5037 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5038 what you want, put an & in front.)
5040 =item Your random numbers are not that random
5042 (F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5043 not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5044 Something Very Wrong.
5050 L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>.