1 //depot/perl/pod/perldiag.pod#272 - edit change 14824 (text)
4 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
8 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
11 (W) A warning (optional).
12 (D) A deprecation (optional).
13 (S) A severe warning (default).
14 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
15 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
16 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
17 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
19 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
20 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
22 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
23 category is included with the classification letter in the description
26 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
27 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
28 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
29 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
31 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
32 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
34 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
35 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
36 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
39 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
40 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
41 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
42 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
43 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
48 =item accept() on closed socket %s
50 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
51 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
54 =item Allocation too large: %lx
56 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
58 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
60 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
63 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
65 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
66 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
67 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
68 subroutine is not imported.
70 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
71 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
72 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
73 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
75 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
76 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
77 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
80 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
82 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
83 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
84 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
85 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
87 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
89 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
90 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
91 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
93 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
95 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
96 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
97 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
99 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
101 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
102 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
103 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
104 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
105 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
107 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
114 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
116 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
117 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
118 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
119 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
120 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
121 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
124 =item Args must match #! line
126 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
127 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
128 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
129 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
131 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
133 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
135 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
137 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
142 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
144 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
150 or a hash or array slice, such as:
152 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
153 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
155 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
157 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
158 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
161 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
163 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
164 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
165 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
167 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
169 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
170 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
172 =item assertion botched: %s
174 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
176 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
178 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
180 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
182 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
183 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
184 know which context to supply to the right side.
186 =item Attempt to access key '%_' in fixed hash
188 (F) A hash has been marked as READONLY at the C level to turn it
189 into a "record" with a fixed set of keys. The failing code
190 has attempted to get or set the value of a key which does not
191 exist or to delete a key.
193 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
195 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
196 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
197 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
203 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
205 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
206 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
209 bless $self, "$proto";
211 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
213 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
214 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
215 outside any of those arenas.
217 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
219 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
220 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
221 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
222 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
224 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
226 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
227 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
228 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
229 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
232 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
234 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
236 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
238 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
239 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
240 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
241 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
242 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
243 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
246 =item Attempt to join self
248 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
249 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
250 to move the join() to some other thread.
252 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
254 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
255 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
256 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
257 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
258 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
261 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
263 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
264 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
265 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
267 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
269 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
270 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
271 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
272 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
274 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
276 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
277 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
278 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
280 =item Bad filehandle: %s
282 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
283 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
284 open(), or did it in another package.
286 =item Bad free() ignored
288 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
289 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
290 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
292 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
293 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
294 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
298 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
300 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
302 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
303 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
306 =item Badly placed ()'s
308 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
309 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
312 =item Bad name after %s::
314 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
315 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
324 $sym = "mypack::$var";
326 =item Bad realloc() ignored
328 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
329 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
330 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
332 =item Bad symbol for array
334 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
335 wasn't a symbol table entry.
337 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
339 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
340 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
342 =item Bad symbol for hash
344 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
345 wasn't a symbol table entry.
347 =item Bareword found in conditional
349 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
350 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
351 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
355 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
358 use constant TYPO => 1;
359 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
361 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
363 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
365 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
366 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
367 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
369 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
371 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
372 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
373 you need to predeclare a package?
375 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
377 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
378 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
381 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
383 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
384 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
385 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
386 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
387 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
389 =item \1 better written as $1
391 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
392 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
393 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
394 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
395 there are more than 9 backreferences.
397 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
399 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
400 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
401 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
403 =item bind() on closed socket %s
405 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
406 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
408 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
410 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
411 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
413 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
415 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
417 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
419 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
422 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
424 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
425 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
427 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
429 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
430 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
431 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
433 =item Callback called exit
435 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
436 exited by calling exit.
438 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
440 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
441 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
442 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
443 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
444 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
445 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
446 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
447 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
449 =item / cannot take a count
451 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
452 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
455 =item Can't bless non-reference value
457 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
458 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
460 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
462 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
463 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
464 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
466 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
468 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
469 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
470 like this will reproduce the error:
473 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
474 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
476 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
478 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
479 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
480 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
481 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
483 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
485 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
486 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
487 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
488 Something like this will reproduce the error:
491 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
492 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
494 =item Can't chdir to %s
496 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
497 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
499 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
501 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
504 =item Can't coerce array into hash
506 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
507 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
508 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
510 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
512 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
513 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
523 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
525 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
527 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
528 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
530 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
532 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
533 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
535 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
537 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
538 quotas or other plumbing problems.
540 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
542 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
543 class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be
544 extended for other types of variables in future.
546 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
548 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
549 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
551 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
553 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
554 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
556 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
558 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
561 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
563 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
564 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
565 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
567 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
569 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
570 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
571 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
573 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
575 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
576 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
577 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
579 =item Can't do setegid!
581 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
584 =item Can't do seteuid!
586 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
588 =item Can't do setuid
590 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
591 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
592 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
593 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
594 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
595 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
597 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
599 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
600 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
602 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
604 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
605 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
608 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
610 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
611 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
612 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
613 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
614 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
615 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
620 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
621 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
622 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
624 =item Can't execute %s
626 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
627 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
629 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
631 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
632 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
634 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
636 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
637 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
638 (remember that the names of character properties consist only of
639 alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
641 =item Can't find label %s
643 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
644 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
646 =item Can't find %s on PATH
648 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
651 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
653 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
654 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
655 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
657 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
659 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
660 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
661 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
663 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
665 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
666 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
667 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
669 =item Can't find %s property definition %s
671 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property for
672 example \p{Lu} is all uppercase letters. Escape the C<\p>, either
673 C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
678 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
681 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
683 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
684 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
685 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
686 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
687 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
688 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
689 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
690 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
691 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
692 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
693 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
694 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
695 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
696 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
697 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
699 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
701 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
702 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
704 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
706 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
707 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
709 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
711 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
712 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
714 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
716 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
717 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
718 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
719 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
721 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
723 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
724 "string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
725 probably don't want to.)
727 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
729 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
730 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
731 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
732 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
734 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
736 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
737 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
738 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
739 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
740 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
741 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
743 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
745 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
746 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
747 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
748 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
749 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
750 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
753 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
755 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
756 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
757 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
760 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
762 (F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
763 reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
764 can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
765 directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
767 =item Can't localize through a reference
769 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
770 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
771 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
772 that $ref will still be a reference.
774 =item Can't locate %s
776 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
777 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
778 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
779 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
780 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
781 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
782 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
784 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
786 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
787 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
788 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
789 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
791 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
793 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
794 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
795 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
797 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
799 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
800 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
801 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
803 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
805 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
806 doesn't seem to exist.
808 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
810 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
813 =item Can't modify %s in %s
815 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
816 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
818 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
820 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
823 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
825 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
826 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
828 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
830 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
833 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
835 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
836 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
837 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
838 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
839 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
840 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
842 =item Can't open %s: %s
844 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
845 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
846 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
847 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
850 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
852 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
853 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
854 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
855 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
857 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
859 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
860 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
861 the command line for writing.
863 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
865 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
866 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
867 command line for reading.
869 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
871 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
872 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
873 the command line for writing.
875 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
877 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
878 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
881 =item Can't open perl script%s: %s
883 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
885 =item Can't read CRTL environ
887 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
888 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
889 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
890 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
893 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
895 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
896 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
897 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
898 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
900 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
902 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
903 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
904 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
905 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
906 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
907 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
909 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
911 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
912 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
913 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
915 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
917 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
918 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
920 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
922 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
923 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
925 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
927 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
928 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
929 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
931 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
933 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
936 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
938 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
939 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
942 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
944 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
945 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
946 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
947 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
950 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
952 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
953 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
955 =item Can't stat script "%s"
957 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
958 open already. Bizarre.
960 =item Can't swap uid and euid
962 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
965 =item Can't take log of %g
967 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
968 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
969 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
972 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
974 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
975 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
976 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
978 =item Can't undef active subroutine
980 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
981 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
982 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
986 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
987 as the main Perl stack.
989 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
991 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
992 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
993 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
994 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
996 =item Can't upgrade to undef
998 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
999 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
1002 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1004 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1005 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1007 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1009 (P) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1010 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1011 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1013 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1015 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1016 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1018 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1020 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1021 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1022 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1024 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1026 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1029 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1031 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1032 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1033 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1034 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1037 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1039 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1040 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1041 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1042 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1045 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1047 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1048 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1049 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1051 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1053 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1054 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1056 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1058 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1059 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1060 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1062 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1064 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1065 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1066 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1067 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1068 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1071 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1073 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1074 references can be weakened.
1076 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1078 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1079 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1080 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1082 =item Character in "C" format wrapped
1088 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1089 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1090 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1094 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1097 =item Character in "c" format wrapped
1103 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1104 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1105 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1107 pack("c", $x & 255);
1109 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1112 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1114 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1116 =item %s: Command not found
1118 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1119 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1121 =item Compilation failed in require
1123 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1124 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1125 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1127 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1129 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1130 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1131 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1132 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1133 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1134 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1135 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1136 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1137 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1139 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1141 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1142 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1143 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1145 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1147 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1148 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1149 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1150 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1153 =item Constant is not %s reference
1155 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1156 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1157 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1158 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1159 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1161 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1163 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1164 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1165 commentary and workarounds.
1167 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1169 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1170 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1173 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1175 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1176 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1178 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1180 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1182 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1184 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1185 expression compiler gave it.
1187 =item corrupted regexp program
1189 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1192 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1194 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1196 =item C<-p> destination: %s
1198 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1199 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1200 redirected it with select().)
1202 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1204 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1205 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1207 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1209 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1210 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1211 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1212 which case it indicates something else.
1214 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1216 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1217 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1218 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1220 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1222 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1223 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1224 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1226 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1228 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1229 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1230 that triggers this error.
1232 =item Did not produce a valid header
1236 =item %s did not return a true value
1238 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1239 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1240 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1241 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1243 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1245 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1248 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1250 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1251 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1254 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1256 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1257 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1262 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1263 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1265 =item Document contains no data
1269 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1271 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1273 =item do_study: out of memory
1275 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1277 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1279 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1280 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1281 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1282 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1283 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1284 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1285 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1286 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1288 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1290 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1291 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1293 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1295 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1298 =item elseif should be elsif
1300 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1301 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1302 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1303 unlikely to be what you want.
1307 (F) Empty C<\p{}> or C<\P{}>.
1309 =item entering effective %s failed
1311 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1312 effective uids or gids failed.
1314 =item Error converting file specification %s
1316 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1317 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1318 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1319 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1320 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1322 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1324 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1325 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1326 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1328 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1330 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1331 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1332 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1333 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1334 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1335 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1337 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1339 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1340 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1341 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1343 =item Excessively long <> operator
1345 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1346 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1347 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1348 variable and glob that.
1350 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1352 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1354 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1356 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1358 =item Exiting eval via %s
1360 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1361 goto, or a loop control statement.
1363 =item Exiting format via %s
1365 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1366 goto, or a loop control statement.
1368 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1370 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1371 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1372 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1374 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1376 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1377 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1379 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1381 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1382 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1384 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1386 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1387 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1388 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1389 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1391 =item %s: Expression syntax
1393 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1394 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1396 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1398 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1399 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1400 routines has been prematurely ended.
1402 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1404 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1405 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1406 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1407 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1408 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1410 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1412 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1413 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1414 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1415 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1417 =item fcntl is not implemented
1419 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1420 PDP-11 or something?
1422 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1424 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1425 to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1426 or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1427 the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1429 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1431 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1432 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1433 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1434 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1436 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1438 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1439 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1440 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1443 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1445 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1446 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1447 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1450 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1452 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1453 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1454 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1457 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex;
1459 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1461 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
1462 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
1463 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1465 =item Format not terminated
1467 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1468 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1470 =item Format %s redefined
1472 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1475 no warnings 'redefine';
1476 eval "format NAME =...";
1479 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1489 (or something like that).
1491 =item %s found where operator expected
1493 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1494 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1495 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1496 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1498 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1500 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1502 =item gethostent not implemented
1504 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1505 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1508 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1510 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1511 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1513 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1515 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1516 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1518 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1520 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1521 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1522 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1524 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1526 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1527 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1528 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1531 =item glob failed (%s)
1533 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1534 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1535 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1536 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1537 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1538 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1539 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1540 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1541 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1542 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1543 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1545 =item Glob not terminated
1547 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1548 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1549 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1550 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1552 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1554 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1555 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1557 =item goto must have label
1559 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1560 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1562 =item %s-group starts with a count
1564 (F) In pack/unpack a ()-group started with a count. A count is
1565 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1567 =item %s had compilation errors
1569 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1571 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1573 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1574 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1575 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1577 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1579 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1580 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1582 =item %s has too many errors
1584 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1585 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1587 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1589 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1590 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1591 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1593 =item Identifier too long
1595 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1596 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1597 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1598 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1600 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1602 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1604 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1606 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1607 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1610 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1612 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1613 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1614 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1615 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1616 to your Perl administrator.
1618 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1620 (W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
1621 characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1623 =item Illegal division by zero
1625 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1626 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1629 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1631 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1632 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1633 number stopped before the illegal character.
1635 =item Illegal modulus zero
1637 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1638 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1640 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1642 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1643 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1645 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1647 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1649 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1651 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1652 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1654 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1656 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1657 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmtw]>.
1659 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1661 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1662 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1663 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1665 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1667 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1668 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1669 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1672 =item (in cleanup) %s
1674 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1675 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1676 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1677 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1678 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1680 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1681 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1683 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1685 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1686 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1687 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1688 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1689 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1690 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1691 L<perlsec> for more information.
1693 =item Insecure directory in %s
1695 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1696 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1697 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1699 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1701 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1702 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1703 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1704 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1705 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1707 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1709 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1710 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1711 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1712 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1713 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1714 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1715 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1716 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1719 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1721 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1722 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1725 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1727 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1728 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1729 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1730 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1731 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1732 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1734 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1736 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
1737 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1740 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1742 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1743 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1744 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1745 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1747 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1749 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1750 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1752 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1754 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1755 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1757 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1759 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1760 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1762 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1764 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1765 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
1766 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
1767 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1768 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1770 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1772 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1773 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1775 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1777 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1778 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1779 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1782 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1784 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1785 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1788 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1790 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1792 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1795 =item ioctl is not implemented
1797 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1798 strange for a machine that supports C.
1800 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
1802 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1803 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1805 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
1807 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
1808 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
1810 =item `%s' is not a code reference
1812 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
1813 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1816 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1818 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
1821 =item junk on end of regexp
1823 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1825 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1827 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1828 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1831 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1833 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1834 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1837 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1839 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1840 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1843 =item leaving effective %s failed
1845 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1846 effective uids or gids failed.
1848 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1850 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1851 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1854 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1856 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1857 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1858 instead on the filehandle.)
1860 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1862 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1863 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1864 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1866 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex;
1868 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1870 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
1871 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The <-- HERE
1872 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1874 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1876 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1883 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1884 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1885 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1886 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1888 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
1890 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
1891 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
1892 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
1893 when the function is called.
1895 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1897 Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1899 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1901 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1902 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1904 =item %s matches null string many times in regex;
1906 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1908 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1909 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
1910 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1913 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
1915 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
1916 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
1919 =item % may only be used in unpack
1921 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
1922 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1923 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1925 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1927 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1928 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1930 =item Method %s not permitted
1934 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1936 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1937 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1938 ended earlier on the current line.
1940 =item Misplaced _ in number
1942 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
1943 separate two digits.
1945 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1947 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1948 double-quotish context.
1950 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1952 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1953 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1955 =item Missing command in piped open
1957 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1958 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1961 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1963 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1964 they have a name with which they can be found.
1966 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1968 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1969 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1970 can vary from one line to the next.
1972 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
1974 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1975 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1977 =item Missing right brace on %s
1979 (F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
1981 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1983 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1984 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1987 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1989 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1990 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1991 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1993 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1995 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1996 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1997 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1999 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2002 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2004 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2005 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2008 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2009 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2012 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2014 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2015 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2018 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2020 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2021 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2023 =item Module name must be constant
2025 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2027 =item Module name required with -%c option
2029 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2030 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2031 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2033 =item More than one argument to open
2035 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2036 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2037 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2038 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2040 =item msg%s not implemented
2042 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2044 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2046 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2047 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2049 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
2051 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
2052 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
2053 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2055 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
2057 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
2058 must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
2059 of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2061 =item / must follow a numeric type
2063 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
2064 follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2066 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2068 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2071 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2073 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2074 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2075 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2077 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2079 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2080 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2081 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2082 provided for this purpose.
2084 =item Negative length
2086 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2087 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2089 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2091 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2092 greater than or equal to zero.
2094 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2096 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2097 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2098 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2100 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2101 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2103 =item %s never introduced
2105 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2106 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2108 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2110 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2111 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2112 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2113 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2115 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2117 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2119 =item No comma allowed after %s
2121 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2122 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2123 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2125 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2126 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2127 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2128 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2129 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2130 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2131 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2132 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2133 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2134 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2135 this error was triggered?
2137 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2139 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2140 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2141 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2143 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2145 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2146 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2147 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2148 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2149 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2151 =item No dbm on this machine
2153 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2154 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2156 =item No DBsub routine
2158 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2159 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2160 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2161 ordinary subroutine call.
2163 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2165 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2166 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2167 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2169 =item No input file after < on command line
2171 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2172 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2173 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2177 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2178 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2180 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2182 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2183 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2185 =item No output file after > on command line
2187 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2188 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2189 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2191 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2193 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2194 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2195 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2197 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2199 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2200 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2201 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2203 =item No Perl script found in input
2205 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2206 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2208 =item No setregid available
2210 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2213 =item No setreuid available
2215 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2218 =item No space allowed after -%c
2220 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2221 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2223 =item No %s specified for -%c
2225 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2226 you haven't specified one.
2228 =item No such class %s
2230 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration, but
2231 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2233 =item No such pipe open
2235 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2236 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2237 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2239 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2241 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2242 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2243 array indices for that to work.
2245 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2247 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2248 not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2249 %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2250 %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2252 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2254 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2255 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2256 names on your system.
2258 =item Not a CODE reference
2260 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2261 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2262 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2265 =item Not a format reference
2267 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2268 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2270 =item Not a GLOB reference
2272 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2273 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2274 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2275 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2277 =item Not a HASH reference
2279 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2280 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2281 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2283 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2285 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2286 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2287 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2289 =item Not a perl script
2291 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2292 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2295 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2297 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2298 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2299 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2301 =item Not a subroutine reference
2303 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2304 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2305 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2308 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2310 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2311 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2313 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2315 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2317 =item Not enough format arguments
2319 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2320 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2324 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2325 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2328 =item %s not allowed in length fields
2330 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
2331 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes. Redesign
2334 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2336 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2337 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2338 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2339 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2340 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2342 =item Null filename used
2344 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2345 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2347 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2349 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2352 =item Null picture in formline
2354 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2355 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2356 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2360 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2362 =item NULL regexp argument
2364 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2366 =item NULL regexp parameter
2368 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2370 =item Number too long
2372 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2373 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2374 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2375 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2378 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2380 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2381 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2384 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2386 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2387 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2388 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2390 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2392 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2394 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2395 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
2397 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2399 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2400 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2402 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2404 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2405 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2407 =item Offset outside string
2409 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2410 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2411 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2412 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2414 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2416 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2417 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2419 =item %s() on unopened %s
2421 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2422 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2423 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2427 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2431 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2433 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2435 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2436 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2437 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2438 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2440 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2442 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2443 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2444 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2445 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2448 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2450 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2451 in the current lexical scope.
2453 =item Out of memory!
2455 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2456 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2457 no option but to exit immediately.
2459 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2461 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2462 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2463 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2464 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2466 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2468 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2469 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2472 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2473 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2474 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2475 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2476 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2477 where the failed request happened.
2479 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2481 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2482 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2483 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2485 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2487 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2488 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2491 =item @ outside of string
2493 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2494 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2496 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2498 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2499 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2500 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2501 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2503 =item Package '%s' not found (did you use the incorrect case?)
2505 (W misc) You included a package file via C<use>, but the package name
2506 did not match the file name. It's possible that you misspelled the
2511 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2512 page. See L<perlform>.
2516 (P) An internal error.
2518 =item panic: ck_grep
2520 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2522 =item panic: ck_split
2524 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2526 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2528 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2529 there are in the savestack.
2531 =item panic: del_backref
2533 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2538 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2539 it wasn't an eval context.
2541 =item panic: pp_match%s
2543 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2546 =item panic: do_subst
2548 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2551 =item panic: do_trans_%s
2553 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
2558 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2562 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2563 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2565 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2567 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2569 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2571 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2573 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2575 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2579 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2580 it wasn't a block context.
2582 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2584 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2587 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2589 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2590 invalid enum on the top of it.
2592 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2594 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2595 references to an object.
2599 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2601 =item panic: mapstart
2603 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2605 =item panic: null array
2607 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2609 =item panic: pad_alloc
2611 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2612 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2614 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2616 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2617 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2619 =item panic: pad_free po
2621 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2623 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2625 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2626 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2628 =item panic: pad_sv po
2630 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2632 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2634 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2635 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2637 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2639 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2641 =item panic: pp_iter
2643 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2645 =item panic: pp_split
2647 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2649 =item panic: realloc
2651 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2653 =item panic: restartop
2655 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2656 didn't supply the destination.
2660 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2661 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2663 =item panic: scan_num
2665 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2667 =item panic: sv_insert
2669 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2672 =item panic: top_env
2674 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2678 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2680 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2682 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2683 to even) byte length.
2685 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2687 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2693 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2695 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2697 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2699 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2700 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2701 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2703 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2705 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2706 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2708 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2710 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2712 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2713 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2716 are supported and installed on your system.
2717 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2719 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2720 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2721 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2722 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2723 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2724 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2725 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2726 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2727 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2728 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2730 =item perlio: argument list not closed for layer "%s"
2732 (S) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you forgot
2733 the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
2734 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
2735 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
2736 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
2737 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2739 =item perlio: invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2741 (S) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2742 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2743 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2744 list was terminated too soon.
2746 =item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2748 (S) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
2749 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2750 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2751 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2752 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2753 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2755 =item Permission denied
2757 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2759 =item pid %x not a child
2761 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2762 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2763 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2765 =item P must have an explicit size
2767 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
2769 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex;
2771 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2773 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2774 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
2775 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
2776 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
2777 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
2778 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2780 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex;
2782 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2784 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2785 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
2786 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
2787 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
2788 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
2789 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2791 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex;
2793 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2795 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
2796 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
2797 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
2798 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
2799 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2800 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2802 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex;
2804 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2806 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
2807 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2808 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
2809 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
2810 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
2812 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2814 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2815 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2817 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2819 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2820 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2821 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2822 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2824 You probably wrote something like this:
2831 when you should have written this:
2838 If you really want comments, build your list the
2839 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2843 'b', # another comment
2846 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2848 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2849 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2850 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2853 You probably wrote something like this:
2857 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2858 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2862 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2864 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2865 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2866 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2867 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2869 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
2871 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
2872 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
2873 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
2874 to the array you apparently lost track of.
2876 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2878 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2879 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2881 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2883 (D deprecated) You have written something like this:
2887 use attrs qw(locked);
2890 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2896 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2897 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2899 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2901 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2905 is now misinterpreted as
2909 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2910 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2911 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2914 =item Premature end of script headers
2918 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2920 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2921 before now. Check your control flow.
2923 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2925 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2926 before now. Check your control flow.
2928 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2930 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2931 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2932 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2933 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
2936 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2938 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2939 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
2941 =item Prototype not terminated
2943 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
2946 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex;
2948 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2950 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
2951 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
2952 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2954 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression;
2956 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2958 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2959 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2960 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2961 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2962 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2964 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2967 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2969 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2970 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2971 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2972 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2974 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2976 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2977 before now. Check your control flow.
2979 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2981 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2983 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2985 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2988 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2990 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2991 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2992 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2994 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2996 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2997 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2999 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3001 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3002 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3005 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3007 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3008 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3009 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3010 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3012 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3013 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3014 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3015 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3017 =item Reference is already weak
3019 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3020 Doing so has no effect.
3022 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3024 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3025 a reference count of other than 1.
3027 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex;
3029 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3031 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3032 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3033 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3034 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
3036 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3039 =item regexp memory corruption
3041 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3042 expression compiler gave it.
3044 =item Regexp out of space
3046 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3049 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
3051 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3052 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3054 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
3056 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3057 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
3059 =item Reversed %s= operator
3061 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3062 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3064 =item Runaway format
3066 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3067 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3068 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3069 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3070 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3072 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3074 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3075 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3076 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3077 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3078 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3079 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3080 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3082 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3083 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3084 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3087 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3089 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3090 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3091 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3092 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3093 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3094 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3095 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3097 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3098 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3099 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3102 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3104 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3105 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3106 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3107 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3109 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3111 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3112 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
3114 =item Search pattern not terminated
3116 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3117 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3118 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3120 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3122 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3123 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3125 =item select not implemented
3127 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3129 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3131 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3132 the current implementation.
3134 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3136 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3137 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3139 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3141 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3142 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3144 =item sem%s not implemented
3146 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3148 =item send() on closed socket %s
3150 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3151 before now. Check your control flow.
3153 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3155 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3156 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3159 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex;
3161 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3163 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3164 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3165 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3168 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex;
3170 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3172 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3173 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3174 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3176 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex;
3178 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3180 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3181 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3182 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3184 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex;
3186 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3188 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3189 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3190 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3193 =item 500 Server error
3199 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3200 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3201 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3202 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3203 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3204 produce a valid header".
3206 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3208 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3209 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3210 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3211 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3212 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3213 Please see the following for more information:
3215 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3216 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3217 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
3219 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3221 =item setegid() not implemented
3223 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3224 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3227 =item seteuid() not implemented
3229 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3230 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3233 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3235 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3236 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3239 =item setrgid() not implemented
3241 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3242 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3245 =item setruid() not implemented
3247 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3248 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3251 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3253 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3254 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3255 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3257 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3259 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3260 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3262 =item shm%s not implemented
3264 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3266 =item <> should be quotes
3268 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3271 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3273 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3274 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3275 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3276 probably not what you had in mind.
3278 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3280 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3283 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3285 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3286 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3288 =item sort is now a reserved word
3290 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3291 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3293 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3295 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3296 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3297 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3299 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3301 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3302 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3306 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3307 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3308 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3310 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3312 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3313 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3314 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3315 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3318 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3320 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3321 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3323 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3325 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3326 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3327 C<can> may break this.
3329 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3331 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3334 no warnings 'redefine';
3335 eval "sub name { ... }";
3338 =item Substitution loop
3340 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3341 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3342 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3343 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3345 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3347 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3348 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3349 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3351 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3353 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3354 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3355 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3357 =item substr outside of string
3359 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3360 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3361 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3362 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3363 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3365 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3367 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3368 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3370 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex;
3372 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3374 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3375 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3376 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3377 clustering parentheses:
3379 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3381 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3382 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3384 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex;
3386 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3388 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3389 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3390 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3392 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3394 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3395 and effective uids or gids.
3399 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3401 A keyword is misspelled.
3402 A semicolon is missing.
3404 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3405 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3406 A closing quote is missing.
3408 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3409 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3410 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3411 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3412 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3413 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3414 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3415 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3416 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3419 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3421 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3422 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3425 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
3427 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
3428 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
3429 or "my $var" or "our $var".
3433 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3435 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3437 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3438 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3439 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3440 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3442 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3444 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3445 before now. Check your control flow.
3447 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3449 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3450 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3452 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3454 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3455 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3457 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3459 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3460 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3469 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3470 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3472 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3474 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3475 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3476 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3477 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3480 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3482 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3483 to the probings of Configure.
3485 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3487 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3488 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3489 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3492 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3494 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3496 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3497 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3498 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3499 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3500 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3501 target of the change to
3502 %ENV which produced the warning.
3504 =item times not implemented
3506 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3507 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3509 =item Too few args to syscall
3511 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3512 system call to call, silly dilly.
3514 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3516 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3517 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3518 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3519 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3522 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3523 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3524 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3525 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3527 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3528 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3530 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3532 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3533 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3534 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3536 =item Too late to run %s block
3538 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3539 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3540 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3541 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3544 =item Too many args to syscall
3546 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3548 =item Too many arguments for %s
3550 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3556 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3557 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3559 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
3561 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3562 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3564 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3566 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3567 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3568 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3570 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3572 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3575 =item truncate not implemented
3577 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3578 Configure knows about.
3580 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3582 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3583 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3584 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3585 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3587 =item umask not implemented
3589 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3590 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3592 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3594 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3596 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3598 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3599 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3601 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3603 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3604 many values were temporarily localized.
3606 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3608 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3609 many blocks were entered and left.
3611 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3613 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3614 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3616 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3618 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3619 another package? See L<perlform>.
3621 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3623 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3624 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3626 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3628 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3629 since been undefined.
3631 =item Undefined subroutine called
3633 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3634 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3636 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3638 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3639 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3641 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3643 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3644 another package? See L<perlform>.
3646 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3648 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3649 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3652 =item %s: Undefined variable
3654 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3655 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3657 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3659 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3660 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3662 =item Unicode character %s is illegal
3664 (W utf8) Certain Unicode characters have been designated off-limits by
3665 the Unicode standard and should not be generated. If you really know
3666 what you are doing you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
3668 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3670 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3673 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
3675 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
3677 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex;
3679 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3681 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
3682 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
3683 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
3684 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
3685 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
3688 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3689 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3691 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3693 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3694 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3695 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3697 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3699 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3700 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3701 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3702 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3704 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
3706 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
3707 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
3709 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
3710 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
3713 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3715 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3716 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3717 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
3718 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3720 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3722 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3723 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3724 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3725 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3727 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3729 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3730 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3731 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3732 you were last editing.
3734 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3736 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3737 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3738 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3741 =item Unrecognized character %s
3743 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3744 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3745 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3747 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3749 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3750 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3751 understood literally.
3753 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex;
3755 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3757 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3758 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
3759 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
3760 literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3761 escape was discovered.
3763 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3765 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3768 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3770 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3771 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3774 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3776 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3777 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3778 bad switch on your behalf.)
3780 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3782 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3783 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3784 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3786 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3788 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3790 =item Unsupported function %s
3792 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3793 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3795 =item Unsupported function fork
3797 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3799 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3800 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3801 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3803 =item Unsupported script encoding
3805 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3806 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3808 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3810 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3811 least that's what Configure thought.
3813 =item Unterminated attribute list
3815 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3816 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3817 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3818 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3820 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3822 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3823 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3824 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3825 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3827 =item Unterminated compressed integer
3829 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3830 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3831 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3833 =item Unterminated <> operator
3835 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3836 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3837 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3838 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3840 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3842 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3843 still valid when C<untie> was called.
3845 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex;
3847 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3849 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
3850 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
3852 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
3856 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
3858 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3859 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3861 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex;
3863 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3865 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
3866 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
3868 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
3872 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
3874 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3875 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3877 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3879 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3880 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3881 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3882 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3883 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3884 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3889 when you meant to say
3891 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3893 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3894 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3899 when you should have said
3903 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3904 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3905 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3906 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3907 L<perlref> for more on this.
3909 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
3910 since they are often used in statements like
3912 1 while sub_with_side_effects() ;
3914 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
3917 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3919 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3921 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
3923 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
3927 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
3929 =item Useless use of %s with no values
3931 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
3932 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
3933 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
3934 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
3935 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
3936 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
3938 =item "use" not allowed in expression
3940 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3941 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3943 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3945 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
3946 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3948 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
3950 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
3951 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
3953 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
3955 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
3956 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
3957 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
3960 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
3961 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
3963 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3965 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
3966 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
3967 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3969 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3971 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
3972 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
3973 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
3974 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
3977 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
3978 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
3979 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
3980 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
3983 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3984 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
3985 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
3986 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
3989 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
3990 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3991 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3993 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
3995 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
3996 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3997 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
3999 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4001 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4002 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4003 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4006 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4008 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4009 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4011 =item Use of $* is deprecated
4013 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
4014 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
4015 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
4016 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
4018 =item Use of %s is deprecated
4020 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
4021 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4022 old way has bad side effects.
4024 =item Use of $# is deprecated
4026 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
4027 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
4029 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
4031 (W) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
4032 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4033 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
4035 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
4036 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4037 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
4038 operators and then you assumedly know what you are doing.
4040 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4042 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4043 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4044 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4045 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4046 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4047 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
4049 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
4051 (W taint) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
4052 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
4053 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
4054 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
4056 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
4058 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
4059 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
4060 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
4062 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
4063 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
4064 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
4065 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
4066 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
4067 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
4070 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
4072 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
4073 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
4074 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
4075 be removed in a future version.
4077 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
4079 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
4080 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
4081 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
4082 removed in a future version.
4084 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
4086 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of an UTF-16 surrogate by
4087 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
4088 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
4089 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
4090 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
4091 character. If you really know what you are doing you can turn off
4092 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4094 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
4096 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
4097 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
4098 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
4099 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
4100 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
4101 C<defined> operator.
4103 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
4105 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
4106 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
4107 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
4110 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
4112 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
4113 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
4114 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
4115 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
4116 front of your variable.
4118 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
4120 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
4121 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
4122 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
4123 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
4124 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
4126 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
4128 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
4129 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
4130 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
4131 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
4133 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
4135 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
4136 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
4137 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
4138 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
4139 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
4140 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
4142 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
4143 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
4144 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
4145 between interferes with this feature.
4147 =item Variable syntax
4149 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4150 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4153 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4155 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
4156 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
4158 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
4159 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4160 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4161 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4162 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4163 variable will no longer be shared.
4165 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
4166 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
4167 will I<never> share the given variable.
4169 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4170 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
4171 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
4172 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
4174 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex;
4176 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4178 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
4179 known at compile time. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4180 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4182 =item Version number must be a constant number
4184 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4185 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4188 =item v-string in use/require is non-portable
4190 (W) The use of v-strings is non-portable to older, pre-5.6, Perls.
4191 If you want your scripts to be backward portable, use the floating
4192 point version number: for example, instead of C<use 5.6.1> say
4193 C<use 5.006_001>. This of course won't help: the older Perls
4194 won't suddenly start understanding newer features, but at least
4195 they will show a sensible error message indicating the required
4198 =item Warning: something's wrong
4200 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
4201 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
4203 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
4205 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4206 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4209 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
4211 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4212 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4213 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4214 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
4218 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4222 but in actual fact, you got
4226 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
4228 =item Wide character in %s
4230 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
4231 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print) but can be
4232 turned off by C<no warnings 'utf8';>. You are supposed to explicitly
4233 mark the filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4235 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
4237 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4238 before now. Check your control flow.
4240 =item X outside of string
4242 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
4243 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4245 =item x outside of string
4247 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
4248 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4250 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
4252 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4255 =item Xsub called in sort
4257 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4260 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
4262 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
4263 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
4264 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
4267 =item You need to quote "%s"
4269 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
4270 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
4271 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
4272 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
4273 what you want, put an & in front.)