3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
24 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
25 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
26 The symbols C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
30 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
32 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34 if you want to localize a package variable.
36 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope
38 (S) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectively
39 eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always
40 a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
41 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
44 =item "no" not allowed in expression
46 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
49 =item "use" not allowed in expression
51 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
54 =item % may only be used in unpack
56 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
57 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
58 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
60 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
62 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
63 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
64 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
66 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
68 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
73 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
75 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
80 or a hash slice, such as
82 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
83 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
85 =item %s did not return a true value
87 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
88 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
89 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
90 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
92 =item %s found where operator expected
94 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
95 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
96 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
97 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
99 =item %s had compilation errors
101 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
103 =item %s has too many errors
105 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
106 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
108 =item %s matches null string many times
110 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
111 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
113 =item %s never introduced
115 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
116 before it could possibly have been used.
120 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
122 =item %s: Command not found
124 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
125 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
128 =item %s: Expression syntax
130 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
131 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
134 =item %s: Undefined variable
136 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
137 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
142 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
143 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
146 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
148 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
149 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
150 the previous line just because you saw this message.
152 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
154 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
155 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
157 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
159 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
160 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
162 =item C<-p> destination: %s
164 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
165 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
166 redirected it with select().)
168 =item 500 Server error
172 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
174 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
175 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
177 =item @ outside of string
179 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
180 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
182 =item accept() on closed fd
184 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
185 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
187 =item Allocation too large: %lx
189 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
191 =item Allocation too large
193 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes.
195 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
197 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and translation (tr///)
198 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
199 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
200 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
201 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
202 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
204 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
206 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
208 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
210 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
211 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
212 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
214 =item Args must match #! line
216 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
217 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
218 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
219 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
221 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
223 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
224 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
225 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
227 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
229 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
230 is now heavily deprecated.
232 =item assertion botched: %s
234 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
236 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
238 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
240 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
242 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
243 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
244 know which context to supply to the right side.
246 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
248 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
249 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
252 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
254 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
255 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
256 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
257 that can no longer be found in the table.
259 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
261 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
262 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
263 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
264 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
267 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
269 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
271 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
273 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
274 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
275 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
276 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
277 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
278 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
280 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
282 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
283 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
284 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
285 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
286 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
289 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
291 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
292 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
293 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
295 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
297 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
298 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
299 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
300 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
302 =item Bad filehandle: %s
304 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
305 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
306 did it in another package.
308 =item Bad free() ignored
310 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
311 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
312 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
314 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
315 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
316 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
321 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
323 =item Bad name after %s::
325 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
326 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
335 $sym = "mypack::$var";
337 =item Bad symbol for array
339 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
340 wasn't a symbol table entry.
342 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
344 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
345 wasn't a symbol table entry.
347 =item Bad symbol for hash
349 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
350 wasn't a symbol table entry.
352 =item Badly placed ()'s
354 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
355 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
358 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
360 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
361 subroutine identifier, in curly braces or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
362 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
364 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
366 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
367 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
369 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
371 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
372 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
373 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
374 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
375 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
377 =item bind() on closed fd
379 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
380 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
382 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
384 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
386 =item Callback called exit
388 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
389 exited by calling exit.
391 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
393 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
394 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
395 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
396 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
398 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
400 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
401 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
403 =item Can't "last" outside a block
405 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
406 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
407 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
408 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
409 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
410 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
412 =item Can't "next" outside a block
414 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
415 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
416 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
417 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
418 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
420 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
422 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
423 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
424 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
425 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
426 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
428 =item Can't bless non-reference value
430 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
431 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
433 =item Can't break at that line
435 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
436 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
439 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
441 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
442 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
443 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
445 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
447 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
448 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
449 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
450 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
452 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
454 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
455 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
456 neither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)
457 Something like this will reproduce the error:
460 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
461 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
463 =item Can't chdir to %s
465 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
466 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
468 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
470 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
471 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
481 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
483 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
485 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
486 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
488 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
490 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
491 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
493 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
495 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
496 or other plumbing problems.
498 =item Can't declare %s in my
500 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
501 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
503 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
505 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
507 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
509 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
510 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
513 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
515 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
517 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
519 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
520 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
522 =item Can't do setegid!
524 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
527 =item Can't do seteuid!
529 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
531 =item Can't do setuid
533 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
534 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
535 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
536 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
537 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
538 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
540 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
542 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
543 without flags is emulated.
545 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
547 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
548 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
550 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
552 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
553 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
555 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
557 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
558 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
559 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
560 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
561 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
562 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
566 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
567 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
568 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
570 =item Can't execute %s
572 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
573 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
575 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
577 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
578 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
579 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
581 =item Can't find %s on PATH
583 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
586 =item Can't find label %s
588 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
589 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
591 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
593 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
594 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
595 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
597 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.)
601 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
603 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
605 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
606 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
607 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
608 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
609 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
610 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
611 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
612 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
613 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
614 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
615 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
616 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
617 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
618 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
620 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
622 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
623 can't retrieve its name for later use.
625 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
627 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
628 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
630 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
632 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
633 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
634 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
637 =item Can't localize through a reference
639 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
640 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
641 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
642 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
644 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
646 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
647 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
648 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
651 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
653 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
654 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
655 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
656 doing C<make install>.
658 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
660 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
661 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set the
662 PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra library
663 is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
664 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
666 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
668 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
669 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
670 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
672 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
674 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
677 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
679 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
683 (F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while trying to process
684 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
686 =item Can't modify %s in %s
688 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
689 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
691 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
693 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
696 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
698 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
701 =item Can't open %s: %s
703 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
704 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
705 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
706 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
709 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
711 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
712 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
713 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
714 and then read it in under a different file handle.
716 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
718 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
719 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
720 command line for writing.
722 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
724 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
725 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
727 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
729 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
730 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
733 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
735 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
736 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
738 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
740 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
742 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
744 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
745 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
746 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
747 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
749 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
751 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
752 you don't have write permission to the directory.
754 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
756 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
757 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
759 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
761 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
764 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
766 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
767 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
769 =item Can't stat script "%s"
771 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
772 it open already. Bizarre.
774 =item Can't swap uid and euid
776 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
779 =item Can't take log of %g
781 (F) Logarithms are defined on only positive real numbers.
783 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
785 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
786 negative number. There's a Complex package available for Perl, though,
787 if you really want to do that.
789 =item Can't undef active subroutine
791 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
792 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
793 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
797 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
798 as the main Perl stack.
800 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
802 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
803 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
804 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
805 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
807 =item Can't upgrade to undef
809 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
810 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
811 code calling sv_upgrade.
813 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
815 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
816 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
817 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
818 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
821 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
823 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
825 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
827 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
828 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
829 test the type of the reference, if need be.
831 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
833 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
834 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
835 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
836 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
837 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
839 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
841 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
842 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
844 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
846 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
847 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
849 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
851 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
852 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
854 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
856 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
857 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
858 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
859 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
862 =item Can't use subscript on %s
864 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
865 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
866 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
868 =item Can't write to temp file for B<-e>: %s
870 (F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
871 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
873 =item Can't x= to read-only value
875 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
876 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
877 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
879 =item Cannot open temporary file
881 (F) The create routine failed for some reason while trying to process
882 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
884 =item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
886 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
887 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
888 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
890 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
892 (W) A novice will sometimes say
896 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
897 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
899 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
901 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
903 =item Compilation failed in require
905 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
906 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
907 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
909 =item connect() on closed fd
911 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
912 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
914 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
916 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
917 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
920 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
922 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
923 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
926 =item Copy method did not return a reference
928 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
930 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
932 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
934 =item corrupted regexp pointers
936 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
937 expression compiler gave it.
939 =item corrupted regexp program
941 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
942 a valid magic number.
944 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
946 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
947 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
948 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
949 case it indicates something else.
951 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
953 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
954 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
955 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
957 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
959 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
961 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
963 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
964 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
968 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
969 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
971 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
973 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
974 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
975 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
976 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
977 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
978 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
979 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
980 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
983 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
985 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
987 =item do_study: out of memory
989 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
991 =item Duplicate free() ignored
993 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
996 =item elseif should be elsif
998 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
999 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1000 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1001 unlikely to be what you want.
1003 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
1005 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1006 The interpreter is immediately exited.
1008 =item Error converting file specification %s
1010 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1011 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1012 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1013 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1014 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1016 =item Excessively long <> operator
1018 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1019 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1020 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1021 variable and glob that.
1023 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1025 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1027 =item Exiting eval via %s
1029 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1030 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1032 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1034 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1035 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1036 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1038 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1040 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1041 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1043 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1045 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1046 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1048 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1050 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1051 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1052 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1053 the Perl source code is distressed.
1055 =item fcntl is not implemented
1057 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1058 PDP-11 or something?
1060 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1062 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1063 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1064 the FileHandle package.
1066 =item Filehandle %s opened for only input
1068 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1069 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1070 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1071 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1074 =item Filehandle opened for only input
1076 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1077 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1078 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1079 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1082 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1084 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1085 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1086 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1089 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1091 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1092 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1093 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1096 =item Format %s redefined
1098 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1102 eval "format NAME =...";
1105 =item Format not terminated
1107 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1108 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1110 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1120 (or something like that).
1122 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1124 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1126 =item gethostent not implemented
1128 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1129 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1132 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1134 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1135 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1137 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1139 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1140 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1143 =item Glob not terminated
1145 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1146 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1147 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1148 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1150 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1152 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1153 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1154 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1156 =item goto must have label
1158 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1159 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1161 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1163 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1164 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1165 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1167 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1169 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1170 is now heavily deprecated.
1172 =item Identifier too long
1174 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1175 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1176 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1177 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1179 =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
1181 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
1182 to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
1183 names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
1184 appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
1185 might directly modify logical name tables and introduce nonstandard names,
1186 or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
1188 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1190 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1191 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1192 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1194 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1195 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1196 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1197 properly converting the text file format.
1199 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1200 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1201 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1203 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1204 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1207 =item Illegal division by zero
1209 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1210 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1212 =item Illegal modulus zero
1214 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1215 don't take to this kindly.
1217 =item Illegal octal digit
1219 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1221 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
1223 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1224 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1226 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1228 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1229 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1231 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1233 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1234 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1235 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1236 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1237 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1238 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1239 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1241 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1243 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1244 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1245 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1246 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1247 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1248 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1249 for more information.
1251 =item Insecure directory in %s
1253 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1254 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1259 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1260 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> is derived from data supplied (or
1261 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1262 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1264 =item Integer overflow in hex number
1266 (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
1267 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
1270 =item Integer overflow in octal number
1272 (S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
1273 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
1276 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1278 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1279 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1280 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1281 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
1282 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1283 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1284 and execute the specified command.
1286 =item internal disaster in regexp
1288 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1290 =item internal error: glob failed
1292 (P) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1293 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. This may mean that your csh (C shell) is
1294 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1295 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1296 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1297 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1298 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1299 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1301 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1303 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1305 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1307 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1308 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1310 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1312 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1313 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1315 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1317 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1319 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1321 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1323 =item ioctl is not implemented
1325 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1326 strange for a machine that supports C.
1328 =item junk on end of regexp
1330 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1332 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1334 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1335 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1336 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1338 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1340 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1341 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1344 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1346 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1347 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1350 =item listen() on closed fd
1352 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1353 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1355 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1357 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1358 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1360 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1362 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1363 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1364 ended earlier on the current line.
1366 =item Misplaced _ in number
1368 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1370 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1372 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1373 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1374 one line to the next.
1376 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1378 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1379 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1381 =item Missing operator before %s?
1383 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1384 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1386 =item Missing right bracket
1388 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1389 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1392 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1394 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1395 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1396 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1398 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1401 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1403 =item Modification of noncreatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1405 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1406 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1409 =item Modification of noncreatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1411 (F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1412 be created for some peculiar reason.
1414 =item Module name must be constant
1416 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1418 =item msg%s not implemented
1420 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1422 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1424 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1425 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1427 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1429 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1430 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1431 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
1432 provided for just this purpose.
1434 =item Negative length
1436 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1437 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1439 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1441 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1442 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1444 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1445 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1449 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1450 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1452 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1454 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1455 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1456 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1459 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1461 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1463 =item No comma allowed after %s
1465 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1466 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1467 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1469 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1470 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1471 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1472 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1473 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1474 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1475 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1476 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1477 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1478 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1479 this error was triggered?
1481 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1483 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1484 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1485 want to pipe the output from this command.
1487 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1489 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1490 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1491 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1492 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1493 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1496 =item No dbm on this machine
1498 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1499 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1501 =item No DBsub routine
1503 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1504 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1505 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1506 ordinary subroutine call.
1508 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1510 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1511 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1512 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1514 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1516 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1517 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1518 from which to read data for stdin.
1520 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1522 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1523 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1524 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1526 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1528 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1529 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1530 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1532 =item No Perl script found in input
1534 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1535 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1537 =item No setregid available
1539 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1542 =item No setreuid available
1544 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1547 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1549 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1552 =item No such pipe open
1554 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1555 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1556 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1558 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1560 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1561 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1563 =item Not a CODE reference
1565 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1566 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1567 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1568 See also L<perlref>.
1570 =item Not a format reference
1572 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1573 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1575 =item Not a GLOB reference
1577 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1578 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1579 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1580 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1582 =item Not a HASH reference
1584 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1585 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1586 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1588 =item Not a perl script
1590 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1591 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1594 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1596 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1597 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1598 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1600 =item Not a subroutine reference
1602 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1603 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1604 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1605 See also L<perlref>.
1607 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1609 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1610 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1612 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1614 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1615 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1616 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1618 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1620 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1622 =item Not enough format arguments
1624 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1627 =item Null filename used
1629 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1630 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1632 =item Null picture in formline
1634 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1635 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1636 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1638 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1640 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1644 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1646 =item NULL regexp argument
1648 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1650 =item NULL regexp parameter
1652 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1654 =item Number too long
1656 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
1657 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
1658 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
1659 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
1661 =item Odd number of elements in hash list
1663 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash list, which is odd,
1664 because hash lists come in key/value pairs.
1666 =item Offset outside string
1668 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1669 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1670 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1671 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1675 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1679 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1681 =item Operation `%s': no method found,%s
1683 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1684 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1685 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1686 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1687 true. See L<overload>.
1689 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1691 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1692 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1693 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1694 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1695 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1697 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1699 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1700 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1702 =item Out of memory!
1704 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1705 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1707 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1708 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1709 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1710 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
1711 error is trappable I<once>.
1713 =item Out of memory during request for %s
1715 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1716 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1717 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1718 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1722 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1725 =item panic: ck_grep
1727 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1729 =item panic: ck_split
1731 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1733 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1735 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1736 are in the savestack.
1740 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1741 it wasn't an eval context.
1743 =item panic: do_match
1745 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1747 =item panic: do_split
1749 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1751 =item panic: do_subst
1753 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1755 =item panic: do_trans
1757 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1761 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
1765 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1766 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1768 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1770 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1772 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1774 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1778 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1779 it wasn't a block context.
1781 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1783 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
1785 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1787 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1788 invalid enum on the top of it.
1792 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1794 =item panic: mapstart
1796 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1798 =item panic: null array
1800 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1802 =item panic: pad_alloc
1804 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1805 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1807 =item panic: pad_free curpad
1809 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1810 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1812 =item panic: pad_free po
1814 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1816 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
1818 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1819 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1821 =item panic: pad_sv po
1823 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1825 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1827 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1828 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1830 =item panic: pad_swipe po
1832 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1834 =item panic: pp_iter
1836 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1838 =item panic: realloc
1840 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1842 =item panic: restartop
1844 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1845 didn't supply the destination.
1849 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1850 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
1852 =item panic: scan_num
1854 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
1856 =item panic: sv_insert
1858 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
1861 =item panic: top_env
1863 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
1867 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
1869 =item Pareneses missing around "%s" list
1871 (W) You said something like
1877 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
1879 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
1881 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
1883 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
1884 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
1885 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
1887 =item Permission denied
1889 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
1891 =item pid %d not a child
1893 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
1894 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
1895 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
1897 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
1899 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
1900 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
1902 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
1904 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
1905 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
1906 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
1907 exclamation marks parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1910 You probably wrote something like this:
1917 when you should have written this:
1924 If you really want comments, build your list the
1925 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
1929 'b', # another comment
1932 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
1934 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
1935 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
1936 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1939 You probably wrote something like this:
1943 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
1944 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
1948 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
1950 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
1951 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
1952 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
1953 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
1955 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
1957 (S) The old irregular construct
1961 is now misinterpreted as
1965 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
1966 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
1967 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
1970 =item print on closed filehandle %s
1972 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
1973 Check your logic flow.
1975 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
1977 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1978 Check your logic flow.
1980 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
1982 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
1983 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
1984 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
1988 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
1990 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
1991 or defined with a different function prototype.
1993 =item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
1995 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
1996 Check your logic flow.
1998 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2000 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2002 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2004 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2005 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2006 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2008 =item Recursive inheritance detected
2010 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2011 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2013 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2015 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2016 reference count of other than 1.
2018 =item regexp memory corruption
2020 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2021 expression compiler gave it.
2023 =item regexp out of space
2025 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2027 =item regexp too big
2029 (F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
2030 address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
2031 the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
2032 Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
2033 way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
2035 =item Reversed %s= operator
2037 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2038 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2040 =item Runaway format
2042 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2043 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2044 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2045 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2046 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2048 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2050 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2051 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2052 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2053 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2054 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2055 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2057 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2058 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2059 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2062 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2064 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2065 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2066 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2067 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2068 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2069 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2071 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2072 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2073 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2076 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2078 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2079 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2081 =item Search pattern not terminated
2083 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2084 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2086 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2088 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2089 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2091 =item select not implemented
2093 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2095 =item sem%s not implemented
2097 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2099 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2101 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2102 that had previously been marked as free.
2104 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2106 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2107 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2109 =item Send on closed socket
2111 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2112 Check your logic flow.
2114 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2115 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2118 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2120 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2121 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2123 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2125 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2126 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2128 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2130 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2135 Also known as "500 Server error".
2137 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2139 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2140 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2141 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2142 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2143 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2144 for more information:
2146 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/idiots-guide.html
2147 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/perl-cgi-faq.html
2148 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2149 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2150 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2152 =item setegid() not implemented
2154 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2155 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2158 =item seteuid() not implemented
2160 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2161 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2164 =item setrgid() not implemented
2166 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2167 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2170 =item setruid() not implemented
2172 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2173 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2176 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2178 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2179 because the world might have written on it already.
2181 =item shm%s not implemented
2183 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2185 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2187 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2189 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2191 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2192 put it into the wrong package?
2194 =item sort is now a reserved word
2196 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2197 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2199 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2201 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2202 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2203 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2205 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2207 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2208 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2212 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2213 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2214 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2216 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2218 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2219 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2221 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2223 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2224 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2225 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2226 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2229 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2231 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2232 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2235 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2237 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2241 eval "sub name { ... }";
2244 =item Substitution loop
2246 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2247 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2248 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2249 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2251 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2253 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2254 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2256 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2258 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2259 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2261 =item substr outside of string
2263 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2264 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2265 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2266 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2267 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2269 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2271 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2272 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2276 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2278 A keyword is misspelled.
2279 A semicolon is missing.
2281 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2282 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2283 A closing quote is missing.
2285 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2286 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2287 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2288 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2289 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2290 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2291 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2292 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2293 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2295 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2297 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2298 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2301 =item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
2303 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm",
2304 or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
2306 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2308 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2309 Check your logic flow.
2311 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2313 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2314 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2316 =item tell() on unopened file
2318 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2319 never opened or has since been closed.
2321 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2323 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2324 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2326 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2328 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2329 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2338 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2339 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2341 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2343 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2344 to the probings of Configure.
2346 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2348 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2349 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2350 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2351 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2354 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2356 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2357 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2358 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2360 =item times not implemented
2362 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2363 you're not running on Unix.
2365 =item Too few args to syscall
2367 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2368 system call to call, silly dilly.
2370 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2372 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2373 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2374 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2375 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2378 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2379 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2380 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2381 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2383 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2384 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2386 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2388 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2389 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2390 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2396 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2397 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2400 =item Too many args to syscall
2402 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2404 =item Too many arguments for %s
2406 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2408 =item trailing \ in regexp
2410 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2413 =item Translation pattern not terminated
2415 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2418 =item Translation replacement not terminated
2420 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2423 =item truncate not implemented
2425 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2426 Configure knows about.
2428 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2430 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2431 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2432 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2433 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2435 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2437 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal literals
2438 always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2440 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2442 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2444 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2446 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2447 contexts were entered and left.
2449 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2451 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2452 values were temporarily localized.
2454 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2456 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2457 were entered and left.
2459 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2461 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2462 scalars were allocated and freed.
2464 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2466 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2467 another package? See L<perlform>.
2469 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2471 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2472 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2474 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2476 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2477 has since been undefined.
2479 =item Undefined subroutine called
2481 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2482 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2484 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2486 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2487 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2489 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2491 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2492 another package? See L<perlform>.
2494 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2496 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2497 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2499 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2501 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2503 =item unmatched () in regexp
2505 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2506 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2507 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2509 =item Unmatched right bracket
2511 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2512 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2513 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2516 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2518 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2519 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2522 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2524 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2525 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2526 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2528 =item Unrecognized character %s
2530 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
2531 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
2532 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
2534 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2536 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2537 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2539 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
2541 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2542 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2543 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2545 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2547 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2548 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2549 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
2551 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2553 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2555 =item Unsupported function fork
2557 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
2559 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
2560 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
2561 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
2563 =item Unsupported function %s
2565 (F) This machines doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2566 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2568 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2570 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2571 least that's what Configure thought.
2573 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
2575 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2576 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2577 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2578 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2580 =item Use of "$$<digit>" to mean "${$}<digit>" is deprecated
2582 (D) Perl versions before 5.004 misinterpreted any type marker followed
2583 by "$" and a digit. For example, "$$0" was incorrectly taken to mean
2584 "${$}0" instead of "${$0}". This bug is (mostly) fixed in Perl 5.004.
2586 However, the developers of Perl 5.004 could not fix this bug completely,
2587 because at least two widely-used modules depend on the old meaning of
2588 "$$0" in a string. So Perl 5.004 still interprets "$$<digit>" in the
2589 old (broken) way inside strings; but it generates this message as a
2590 warning. And in Perl 5.005, this special treatment will cease.
2592 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2594 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
2595 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2597 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2599 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
2600 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2601 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2602 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2604 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2606 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2607 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2609 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
2611 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2612 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
2614 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2616 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2617 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2618 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2620 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
2622 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
2623 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
2624 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
2625 as methods (e.g. C<Foo->bar()> or C<$obj->bar()>).
2627 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
2628 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
2629 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
2630 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
2631 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
2633 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
2634 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
2635 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
2636 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
2638 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2640 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2641 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2644 =item Use of uninitialized value
2646 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2647 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2648 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2650 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2652 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2653 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2654 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2655 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2656 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2657 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2661 when you meant to say
2663 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2665 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2666 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2671 when you should have said
2675 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2676 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2677 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2678 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2679 L<perlref> for more on this.
2681 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
2683 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
2684 valid when C<untie> was called.
2686 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
2688 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
2689 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
2690 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
2691 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
2692 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
2694 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
2696 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2697 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2698 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2699 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2700 on the front of your variable.
2702 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
2704 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
2705 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
2706 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
2707 the outermost subroutine. For example:
2709 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
2711 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
2712 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
2713 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
2714 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
2715 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
2716 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
2719 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
2720 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
2721 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
2722 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
2724 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
2726 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
2727 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
2729 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
2730 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
2731 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
2732 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
2733 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
2734 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
2736 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
2737 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
2738 will I<never> share the given variable.
2740 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
2741 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
2742 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
2743 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
2746 =item Variable syntax
2748 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2749 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2752 =item Warning: something's wrong
2754 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
2755 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
2757 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
2759 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
2760 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
2762 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
2764 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2765 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2766 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2767 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2771 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
2775 but in actual fact, you got
2779 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
2781 =item Write on closed filehandle
2783 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2784 Check your logic flow.
2786 =item X outside of string
2788 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
2789 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2791 =item x outside of string
2793 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
2794 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2796 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
2798 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2800 =item Xsub called in sort
2802 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2804 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
2806 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
2807 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
2808 Use a filename instead.
2810 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
2812 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
2813 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
2814 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
2815 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
2817 =item You need to quote "%s"
2819 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
2820 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
2821 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
2822 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
2824 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
2826 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
2827 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2828 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2830 =item \1 better written as $1
2832 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
2833 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
2834 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
2835 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
2836 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
2838 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
2840 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2841 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
2842 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
2844 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
2846 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2847 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
2848 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
2849 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
2852 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
2859 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2861 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2862 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2864 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2866 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2874 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
2875 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
2876 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2877 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
2879 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2881 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2882 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
2884 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2886 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2887 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2888 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2889 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"