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 (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() or unpack() only after certain types.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
141 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
143 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
149 or a hash or array slice, such as:
151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
154 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
156 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
157 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
162 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
166 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
168 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
169 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
171 =item assertion botched: %s
173 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
175 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
177 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
179 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
181 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
182 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
183 know which context to supply to the right side.
185 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
187 (W) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
188 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
189 Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
190 created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
191 thread. See L<threads>.
193 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
195 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
196 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
198 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
200 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
201 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
203 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
205 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
206 which is not in its key set.
208 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
210 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
211 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
212 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
218 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
220 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
221 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
224 bless $self, "$proto";
226 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
228 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
229 which is not in its key set.
231 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
233 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
234 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
236 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
238 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
239 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
240 outside any of those arenas.
242 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
244 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
245 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
246 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
247 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
249 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
251 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
252 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
253 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
254 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
257 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
259 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
261 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
263 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
264 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
265 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
266 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
267 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
268 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
271 =item Attempt to join self
273 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
274 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
275 to move the join() to some other thread.
277 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
279 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
280 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
281 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
282 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
283 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
286 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
288 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
289 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
290 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
292 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
294 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
295 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
296 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
297 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
299 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
301 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
302 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
303 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
305 =item Bad filehandle: %s
307 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
308 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
309 open(), or did it in another package.
311 =item Bad free() ignored
313 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
314 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
315 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
317 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
318 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
319 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
323 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
325 =item Badly placed ()'s
327 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
328 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
331 =item Bad name after %s::
333 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
334 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
343 $sym = "mypack::$var";
345 =item Bad realloc() ignored
347 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
348 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
349 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
351 =item Bad symbol for array
353 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
354 wasn't a symbol table entry.
356 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
358 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
359 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
361 =item Bad symbol for hash
363 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
364 wasn't a symbol table entry.
366 =item Bareword found in conditional
368 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
369 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
370 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
374 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
377 use constant TYPO => 1;
378 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
380 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
382 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
384 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
385 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
386 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
388 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
390 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
391 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
392 you need to predeclare a package?
394 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
396 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
397 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
400 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
402 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
403 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
404 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
405 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
406 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
408 =item \1 better written as $1
410 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
411 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
412 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
413 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
414 there are more than 9 backreferences.
416 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
418 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
419 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
420 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
422 =item bind() on closed socket %s
424 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
425 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
427 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
429 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
430 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
432 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
434 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
436 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
438 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
441 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
443 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
444 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
445 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
447 =item Callback called exit
449 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
450 exited by calling exit.
452 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
454 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
455 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
456 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
457 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
458 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
459 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
460 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
461 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
463 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
465 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
466 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
467 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
468 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
470 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
472 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
473 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
475 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
477 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
478 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
479 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
481 =item Can't bless non-reference value
483 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
484 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
486 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
488 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
489 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
490 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
492 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
494 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
495 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
496 like this will reproduce the error:
499 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
500 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
502 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
504 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
505 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
506 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
507 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
509 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
511 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
512 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
513 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
514 Something like this will reproduce the error:
517 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
518 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
520 =item Can't chdir to %s
522 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
523 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
525 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
527 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
530 =item Can't coerce array into hash
532 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
533 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
534 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
536 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
538 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
539 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
549 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
551 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
553 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
554 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
556 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
558 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
559 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
561 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
563 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
564 quotas or other plumbing problems.
566 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
568 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
569 class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be
570 extended for other types of variables in future.
572 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
574 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
575 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
577 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
579 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
580 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
582 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
584 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
587 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
589 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
590 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
591 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
593 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
595 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
596 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
597 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
599 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
601 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
602 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
603 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
605 =item Can't do setegid!
607 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
610 =item Can't do seteuid!
612 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
614 =item Can't do setuid
616 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
617 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
618 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
619 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
620 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
621 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
623 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
625 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
626 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
628 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
630 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
631 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
634 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
636 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
637 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
638 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
639 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
640 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
641 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
646 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
647 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
648 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
650 =item Can't execute %s
652 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
653 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
655 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
657 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
658 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
660 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
662 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
663 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
664 (remember that the names of character properties consist only of
665 alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
667 =item Can't find label %s
669 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
670 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
672 =item Can't find %s on PATH
674 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
677 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
679 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
680 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
681 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
683 =item Can't find %s property definition %s
685 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
686 example C<\p{Lu}> is all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
687 Unicode property, see L<perlunicode> for the list of known properties.
688 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
689 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
692 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
694 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
695 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
696 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
698 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
700 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
701 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
702 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
706 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
709 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
711 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
712 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
713 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
714 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
715 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
716 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
717 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
718 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
719 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
720 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
721 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
722 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
723 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
724 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
725 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
727 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
729 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
730 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
732 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
734 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
735 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
737 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
739 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
740 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
742 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
744 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
745 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
746 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
747 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
749 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
751 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
752 "string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
753 probably don't want to.)
755 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
757 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
758 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
759 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
760 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
762 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
764 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
765 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
766 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
767 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
768 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
769 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
771 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
773 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
774 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
775 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
776 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
777 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
778 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
781 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
783 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
784 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
785 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
788 =item Can't localize through a reference
790 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
791 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
792 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
793 that $ref will still be a reference.
795 =item Can't locate %s
797 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
798 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
799 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
800 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
801 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
802 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
803 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
805 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
807 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
808 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
809 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
810 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
812 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
814 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
815 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
816 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
818 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
820 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
821 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
823 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
825 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
826 doesn't seem to exist.
828 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
830 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
833 =item Can't modify %s in %s
835 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
836 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
838 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
840 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
843 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
845 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
846 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
848 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
850 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
853 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
855 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
856 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
857 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
858 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
859 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
860 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
862 =item Can't open %s: %s
864 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
865 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
866 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
867 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
870 =item Can't open a reference
872 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
873 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
877 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
878 open is not supported.
880 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
882 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
883 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
884 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
885 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
887 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
889 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
890 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
891 the command line for writing.
893 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
895 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
896 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
897 command line for reading.
899 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
901 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
902 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
903 the command line for writing.
905 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
907 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
908 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
911 =item Can't open perl script%s: %s
913 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
915 =item Can't provide tied hash usage; use keys(%hash) to test if empty
917 (F) When a hash is evaluated in scalar context, bucket usage is
918 returned if the hash is populated, and false is returned if the hash
919 is empty. Bucket usage is not currently available for tied hashes.
920 To test if a hash is empty or populated, use keys(%hash) in scalar
923 =item Can't read CRTL environ
925 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
926 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
927 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
928 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
931 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
933 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
934 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
935 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
936 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
938 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
940 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
941 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
942 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
943 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
944 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
945 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
947 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
949 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
950 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
951 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
953 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
955 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
956 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
958 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
960 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
961 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
963 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
965 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
966 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
967 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
969 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
971 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
974 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
976 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
977 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
980 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
982 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
983 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
985 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
987 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
988 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
989 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
990 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
993 =item Can't stat script "%s"
995 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
996 open already. Bizarre.
998 =item Can't swap uid and euid
1000 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1003 =item Can't take log of %g
1005 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1006 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1007 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1010 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1012 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1013 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1014 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1016 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1018 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1019 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1020 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1024 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1025 as the main Perl stack.
1027 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
1029 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1030 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1031 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1032 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1034 =item Can't upgrade to undef
1036 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
1037 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
1040 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1042 (P) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1043 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1044 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1046 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1048 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1049 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1051 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1053 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1054 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1056 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1058 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1059 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1060 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1062 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1064 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1067 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1069 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1070 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1071 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1072 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1075 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1077 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1078 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1079 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1080 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1083 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1085 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1086 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1087 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1089 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1091 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1092 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1094 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1096 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1097 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1098 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1100 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1102 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1103 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1104 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1105 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1106 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1109 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1111 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1112 references can be weakened.
1114 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1116 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1117 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1118 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1120 =item Character in "C" format wrapped in pack
1126 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1127 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1128 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1132 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1135 =item Character in "c" format wrapped in pack
1141 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1142 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1143 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1145 pack("c", $x & 255);
1147 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1150 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1152 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1154 =item Code missing after '/'
1156 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1157 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1159 =item %s: Command not found
1161 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1162 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1164 =item Compilation failed in require
1166 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1167 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1168 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1170 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1172 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1173 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1174 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1175 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1176 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1177 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1178 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1179 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1180 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1182 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1184 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1185 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1186 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1187 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1188 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1189 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1190 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1193 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1195 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1196 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1197 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1198 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1199 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1200 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1201 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1204 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1206 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1207 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1208 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1210 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1212 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1213 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1214 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1215 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1218 =item Constant is not %s reference
1220 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1221 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1222 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1223 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1224 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1226 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1228 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1229 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1230 commentary and workarounds.
1232 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1234 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1235 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1238 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1240 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1241 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1243 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1245 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1247 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1249 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1250 expression compiler gave it.
1252 =item corrupted regexp program
1254 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1257 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1259 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1261 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1263 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1264 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1267 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1269 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1270 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1271 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1272 which case it indicates something else.
1274 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1276 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1277 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1278 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1280 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1282 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1283 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1284 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1286 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1288 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1289 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1291 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1293 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1294 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1295 that triggers this error.
1297 =item Did not produce a valid header
1301 =item %s did not return a true value
1303 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1304 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1305 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1306 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1308 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1310 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1313 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1315 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1316 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1319 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1321 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1322 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1327 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1328 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1330 =item Document contains no data
1334 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1336 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1337 define a C<$VERSION.>
1339 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1341 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1342 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1344 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1346 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1348 =item do_study: out of memory
1350 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1352 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1354 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1355 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1356 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1357 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1358 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1359 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1360 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1361 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1363 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1365 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1366 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1368 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1370 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1373 =item elseif should be elsif
1375 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1376 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1377 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1378 unlikely to be what you want.
1382 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1383 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1384 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1386 =item entering effective %s failed
1388 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1389 effective uids or gids failed.
1391 =item Error converting file specification %s
1393 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1394 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1395 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1396 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1397 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1399 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1401 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1402 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1403 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1405 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1407 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1408 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1409 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1410 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1411 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1412 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1414 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1416 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1417 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1418 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1420 =item Excessively long <> operator
1422 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1423 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1424 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1425 variable and glob that.
1427 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1429 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1431 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1433 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1435 =item Exiting eval via %s
1437 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1438 goto, or a loop control statement.
1440 =item Exiting format via %s
1442 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1443 goto, or a loop control statement.
1445 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1447 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1448 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1449 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1451 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1453 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1454 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1456 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1458 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1459 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1461 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1463 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1464 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1465 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1466 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1468 =item %s: Expression syntax
1470 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1471 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1473 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1475 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1476 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1477 routines has been prematurely ended.
1479 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1481 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1482 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1483 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1484 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1485 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1487 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1489 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1490 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1491 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1492 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1494 =item fcntl is not implemented
1496 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1497 PDP-11 or something?
1499 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1501 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1502 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1503 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1504 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1506 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1508 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1509 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1510 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1511 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1512 Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1513 (also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1515 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1517 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1518 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occured because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1521 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1523 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1524 as STDIN. This occured because you closed STDIN previously.
1526 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1528 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1529 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1530 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1533 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1535 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1536 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1537 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1540 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1542 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1543 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1544 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1547 =item Format not terminated
1549 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1550 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1552 =item Format %s redefined
1554 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1557 no warnings 'redefine';
1558 eval "format NAME =...";
1561 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1571 (or something like that).
1573 =item %s found where operator expected
1575 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1576 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1577 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1578 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1580 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1582 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1584 =item gethostent not implemented
1586 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1587 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1590 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1592 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1593 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1595 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1597 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1598 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1600 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1602 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1603 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1604 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1606 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1608 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1609 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1610 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1613 =item glob failed (%s)
1615 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1616 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1617 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1618 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1619 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1620 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1621 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1622 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1623 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1624 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1625 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1627 =item Glob not terminated
1629 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1630 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1631 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1632 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1634 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1636 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1637 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1639 =item goto must have label
1641 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1642 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1644 =item ()-group starts with a count
1646 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
1647 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1648 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1650 =item %s had compilation errors
1652 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1654 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1656 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1657 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1658 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1660 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1662 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1663 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1665 =item %s has too many errors
1667 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1668 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1670 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1672 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1673 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1674 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1676 =item Identifier too long
1678 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1679 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1680 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1681 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1683 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1685 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1687 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1689 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1690 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1693 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1695 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1696 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1697 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1698 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1699 to your Perl administrator.
1701 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1703 (W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
1704 characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1706 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1708 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1709 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1711 =item Illegal division by zero
1713 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1714 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1717 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1719 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1720 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1721 number stopped before the illegal character.
1723 =item Illegal modulus zero
1725 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1726 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1728 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1730 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1731 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1733 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1735 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1737 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1739 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1740 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1742 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1744 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1745 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmtw]>.
1747 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1749 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1750 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1751 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1753 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1755 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1756 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1757 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1760 =item Impossible to activate assertion call
1762 (W assertions) You're calling an assertion function in a block that is
1763 not under the control of the C<assertions> pragma.
1765 =item (in cleanup) %s
1767 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1768 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1769 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1770 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1771 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1773 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1774 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1776 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
1778 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
1779 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
1780 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
1782 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1784 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1785 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1786 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1787 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1788 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1789 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1790 L<perlsec> for more information.
1792 =item Insecure directory in %s
1794 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1795 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1796 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1798 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1800 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1801 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1802 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
1803 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
1804 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1806 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1808 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1809 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1810 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1811 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1812 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1813 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1814 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1815 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1818 =item Integer overflow in version
1820 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
1821 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
1822 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
1823 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
1824 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
1827 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1829 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1830 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1833 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1835 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1836 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1837 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1838 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1839 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1840 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1842 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1844 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
1845 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1848 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1850 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1851 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1852 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1853 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1855 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1857 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1858 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1860 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1862 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1863 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1865 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1867 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1868 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1870 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1872 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1873 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
1874 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
1875 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1876 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1878 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
1880 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1881 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1883 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1885 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1886 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1887 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1890 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
1892 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
1893 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1894 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
1897 =item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
1899 (F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
1900 that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
1903 =item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
1905 (F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
1906 See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
1908 =item ioctl is not implemented
1910 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1911 strange for a machine that supports C.
1913 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
1915 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1916 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1918 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
1920 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
1921 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
1923 =item `%s' is not a code reference
1925 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
1926 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1929 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1931 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
1934 =item junk on end of regexp
1936 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1938 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1940 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1941 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1944 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1946 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1947 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1950 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1952 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1953 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1956 =item leaving effective %s failed
1958 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1959 effective uids or gids failed.
1961 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
1963 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was alread used up when an unpack
1964 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
1965 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1967 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1969 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1970 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1973 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1975 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1976 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1977 instead on the filehandle.)
1979 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1981 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
1982 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The <-- HERE
1983 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1985 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1987 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1988 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1989 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1991 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
1993 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
1994 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1996 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
1998 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
1999 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2001 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2003 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2010 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2011 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2012 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2013 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2015 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2017 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2018 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2019 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2020 when the function is called.
2022 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2024 Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
2026 One possible cause is that you read in data that you thought to be in
2027 UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit data). Another
2028 possibility is careless use of utf8::upgrade().
2030 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2032 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2033 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2035 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2037 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2038 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2039 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2042 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2044 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2045 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2048 =item % may not be used in pack
2050 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2051 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2052 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2054 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2056 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2057 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2059 =item Method %s not permitted
2063 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2065 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2066 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2067 ended earlier on the current line.
2069 =item Misplaced _ in number
2071 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2072 separate two digits.
2074 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
2076 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2077 double-quotish context.
2079 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2081 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2082 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2084 =item Missing command in piped open
2086 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2087 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2090 =item Missing control char name in \c
2092 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2095 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2097 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2098 they have a name with which they can be found.
2100 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2102 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2103 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2104 can vary from one line to the next.
2106 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2108 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
2109 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2111 =item Missing right brace on %s
2113 (F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
2115 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2117 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2118 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2121 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2123 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
2124 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2125 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2127 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2129 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2130 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2131 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2133 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2136 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2138 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2139 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2142 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2143 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2146 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2148 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2149 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2152 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2154 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2155 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2157 =item Module name must be constant
2159 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2161 =item Module name required with -%c option
2163 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2164 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2165 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2167 =item More than one argument to open
2169 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2170 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2171 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2172 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2174 =item msg%s not implemented
2176 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2178 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2180 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2181 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2183 =item '/' must be followed by 'a*', 'A*' or 'Z*'
2185 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
2186 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
2187 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2189 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2191 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2192 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2193 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2195 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2197 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2200 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2202 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2203 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2204 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2206 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2208 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2209 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2210 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2211 provided for this purpose.
2213 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2215 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2216 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2218 =item Negative length
2220 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2221 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2223 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2225 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2226 greater than or equal to zero.
2228 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2230 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2231 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2232 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2234 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2235 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2237 =item %s never introduced
2239 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2240 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2242 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2244 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2245 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2246 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2247 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2249 =item No comma allowed after %s
2251 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2252 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2253 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2255 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2256 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2257 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2258 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2259 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2260 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2261 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2262 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2263 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2264 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2265 this error was triggered?
2267 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2269 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2270 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2271 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2273 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2275 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2276 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2277 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2278 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2279 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2281 =item No dbm on this machine
2283 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2284 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2286 =item No DBsub routine
2288 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2289 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2290 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2291 ordinary subroutine call.
2293 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2295 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2297 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2299 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2300 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2301 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2303 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2305 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2306 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2308 =item No input file after < on command line
2310 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2311 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2312 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2316 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2317 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2319 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2321 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2322 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2324 =item No output file after > on command line
2326 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2327 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2328 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2330 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2332 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2333 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2334 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2336 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2338 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2339 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2340 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2342 =item No Perl script found in input
2344 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2345 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2347 =item No setregid available
2349 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2352 =item No setreuid available
2354 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2357 =item No space allowed after -%c
2359 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2360 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2362 =item No %s specified for -%c
2364 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2365 you haven't specified one.
2367 =item No such class %s
2369 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration, but
2370 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2372 =item No such pipe open
2374 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2375 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2376 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2378 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2380 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2381 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2382 names on your system.
2384 =item Not a CODE reference
2386 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2387 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2388 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2391 =item Not a format reference
2393 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2394 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2396 =item Not a GLOB reference
2398 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2399 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2400 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2401 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2403 =item Not a HASH reference
2405 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2406 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2407 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2409 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2411 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2412 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2413 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2415 =item Not a perl script
2417 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2418 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2421 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2423 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2424 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2425 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2427 =item Not a subroutine reference
2429 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2430 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2431 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2434 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2436 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2437 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2439 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2441 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2443 =item Not enough format arguments
2445 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2446 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2450 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2451 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2454 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2456 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2457 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2458 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2459 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2460 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2462 =item Null filename used
2464 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2465 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2467 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2469 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2472 =item Null picture in formline
2474 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2475 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2476 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2480 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2482 =item NULL regexp argument
2484 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2486 =item NULL regexp parameter
2488 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2490 =item Number too long
2492 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2493 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2494 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2495 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2498 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2500 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2501 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2504 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2506 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2507 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2508 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2510 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2512 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2514 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2515 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
2517 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2519 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2520 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2522 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2524 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2525 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2527 =item Offset outside string
2529 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2530 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2531 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2532 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2534 =item %s() on unopened %s
2536 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2537 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2538 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2540 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2542 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2543 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2547 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2551 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2553 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2555 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2556 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2557 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2558 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2560 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2562 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2563 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2564 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2565 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2568 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2570 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2571 in the current lexical scope.
2573 =item Out of memory!
2575 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2576 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2577 no option but to exit immediately.
2579 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
2580 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
2581 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
2582 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
2583 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
2585 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2587 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2588 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2589 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2590 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2592 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2594 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2595 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2598 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2599 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2600 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2601 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2602 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2603 where the failed request happened.
2605 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2607 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2608 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2609 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2611 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2613 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2614 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2617 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
2619 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2620 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2622 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2624 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2625 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2626 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2627 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2629 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
2631 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2632 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2636 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2637 page. See L<perlform>.
2641 (P) An internal error.
2643 =item panic: ck_grep
2645 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2647 =item panic: ck_split
2649 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2651 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2653 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2654 there are in the savestack.
2656 =item panic: del_backref
2658 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2663 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2664 it wasn't an eval context.
2666 =item panic: do_subst
2668 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2671 =item panic: do_trans_%s
2673 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
2678 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2682 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2683 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2685 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2687 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2689 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2691 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2693 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2695 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2699 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2700 it wasn't a block context.
2702 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2704 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2707 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2709 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2710 invalid enum on the top of it.
2712 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2714 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2715 references to an object.
2719 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2721 =item panic: mapstart
2723 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2725 =item panic: null array
2727 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2729 =item panic: pad_alloc
2731 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2732 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2734 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2736 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2737 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2739 =item panic: pad_free po
2741 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2743 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2745 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2746 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2748 =item panic: pad_sv po
2750 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2752 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2754 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2755 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2757 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2759 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2761 =item panic: pp_iter
2763 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2765 =item panic: pp_match%s
2767 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2770 =item panic: pp_split
2772 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2774 =item panic: realloc
2776 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2778 =item panic: restartop
2780 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2781 didn't supply the destination.
2785 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2786 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2788 =item panic: scan_num
2790 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2792 =item panic: sv_insert
2794 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2797 =item panic: top_env
2799 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2803 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2805 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2807 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2808 to even) byte length.
2810 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2812 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2818 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2820 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2822 =item C<-p> destination: %s
2824 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
2825 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
2826 redirected it with select().)
2828 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
2830 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2831 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
2832 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
2834 =item perlio: argument list not closed for layer "%s"
2836 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
2837 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
2838 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
2839 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
2840 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
2841 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2843 =item perlio: invalid separator character %s in layer specification list %s
2845 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2846 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2847 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2848 list was terminated too soon.
2850 =item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2852 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
2853 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2854 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2855 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2856 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2857 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2859 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2861 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2862 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2863 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2865 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2867 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2868 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2870 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
2872 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
2874 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2876 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2878 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2879 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2882 are supported and installed on your system.
2883 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2885 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2886 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2887 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2888 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2889 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2890 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2891 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2892 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2893 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2894 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2896 =item Permission denied
2898 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2900 =item pid %x not a child
2902 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2903 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2904 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2906 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
2908 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
2910 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
2912 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
2913 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
2915 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2917 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
2918 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2919 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
2920 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
2921 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
2923 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2925 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2926 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2928 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2930 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2931 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
2932 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
2933 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
2934 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
2935 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2937 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2939 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2940 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
2941 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
2942 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
2943 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
2944 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2946 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2948 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
2949 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
2950 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
2951 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
2952 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2953 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2955 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2957 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2958 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2959 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2960 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2962 You probably wrote something like this:
2969 when you should have written this:
2976 If you really want comments, build your list the
2977 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2981 'b', # another comment
2984 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2986 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2987 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2988 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2991 You probably wrote something like this:
2995 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2996 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3000 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3002 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3003 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3004 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3005 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3007 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3009 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3010 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3012 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3014 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3015 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3016 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, write
3017 C<$x & ($y == 0 ? 1 : 0)>).
3019 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3021 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3022 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3023 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3024 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3026 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
3028 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
3029 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
3031 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
3033 (D deprecated) You have written something like this:
3037 use attrs qw(locked);
3040 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
3046 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
3047 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
3049 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3051 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3055 is now misinterpreted as
3059 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3060 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3061 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3064 =item Premature end of script headers
3068 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3070 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3071 before now. Check your control flow.
3073 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3075 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3076 before now. Check your control flow.
3078 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3080 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3081 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3082 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3083 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3086 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3088 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3089 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3091 =item Prototype not terminated
3093 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3096 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3098 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3099 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3100 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3102 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3104 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3105 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3106 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3108 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3110 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3111 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3112 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3113 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3114 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3116 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3119 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3121 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3122 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3123 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3124 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3126 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3128 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3129 before now. Check your control flow.
3131 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3133 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3135 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3137 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3139 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
3141 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3143 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3145 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3148 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3150 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3151 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3152 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3154 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3156 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
3157 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
3159 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3161 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3162 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3165 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3167 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3168 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3169 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3170 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3172 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3173 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3174 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3175 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3177 =item Reference is already weak
3179 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3180 Doing so has no effect.
3182 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3184 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3185 a reference count of other than 1.
3187 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3189 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3190 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3191 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3192 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
3194 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3197 =item regexp memory corruption
3199 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3200 expression compiler gave it.
3202 =item Regexp out of space
3204 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3207 =item Reversed %s= operator
3209 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3210 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3212 =item Runaway format
3214 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3215 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3216 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3217 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3218 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3220 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3222 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3223 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3224 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3225 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3227 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3229 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3230 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3231 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3232 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3233 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3234 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3235 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3237 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3238 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3239 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3242 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3244 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3245 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3246 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3247 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3248 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3249 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3250 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3252 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3253 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3254 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3257 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3259 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3260 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
3262 =item Search pattern not terminated
3264 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3265 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3266 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3268 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
3269 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3270 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3271 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3273 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3275 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3276 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3278 =item select not implemented
3280 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3282 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3284 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3285 the current implementation.
3287 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3289 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3290 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3292 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3294 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3295 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3297 =item sem%s not implemented
3299 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3301 =item send() on closed socket %s
3303 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3304 before now. Check your control flow.
3306 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3308 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3309 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3312 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3314 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3315 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3316 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3318 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3320 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3321 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3322 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3324 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3326 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3327 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3328 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3331 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3333 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3334 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3335 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3338 =item 500 Server error
3344 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3345 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3346 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3347 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3348 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3349 produce a valid header".
3351 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3353 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3354 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3355 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3356 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3357 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3358 Please see the following for more information:
3360 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3361 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3362 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
3364 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3366 =item setegid() not implemented
3368 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3369 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3372 =item seteuid() not implemented
3374 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3375 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3378 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3380 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3381 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3384 =item setrgid() not implemented
3386 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3387 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3390 =item setruid() not implemented
3392 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3393 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3396 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3398 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3399 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3400 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3402 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3404 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3405 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3407 =item shm%s not implemented
3409 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3411 =item <> should be quotes
3413 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3416 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3418 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3419 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3420 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3421 probably not what you had in mind.
3423 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3425 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3428 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3430 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3431 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3433 =item sort is now a reserved word
3435 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3436 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3438 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3440 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3441 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3442 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3444 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3446 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3447 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3449 =item splice() offset past end of array
3451 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
3452 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
3453 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
3454 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
3459 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3460 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3461 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3463 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3465 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3466 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3467 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3468 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3471 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3473 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3474 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3476 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3478 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3479 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3480 C<can> may break this.
3482 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3484 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3487 no warnings 'redefine';
3488 eval "sub name { ... }";
3491 =item Substitution loop
3493 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3494 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3495 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3496 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3498 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3500 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3501 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3502 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3504 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3506 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3507 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3508 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3510 =item substr outside of string
3512 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3513 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3514 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3515 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3516 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3518 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3520 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3521 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3523 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3525 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3526 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3527 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3528 clustering parentheses:
3530 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3532 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3533 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3535 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3537 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3538 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3539 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3541 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3543 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3544 and effective uids or gids.
3548 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3550 A keyword is misspelled.
3551 A semicolon is missing.
3553 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3554 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3555 A closing quote is missing.
3557 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3558 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3559 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3560 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3561 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3562 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3563 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3564 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3565 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3568 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3570 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3571 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3574 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
3576 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
3577 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
3578 or "my $var" or "our $var".
3582 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3584 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
3586 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3588 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
3590 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3592 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3594 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3595 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3596 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3597 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3599 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3601 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3602 before now. Check your control flow.
3604 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
3606 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
3607 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
3609 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3611 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3612 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3614 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3616 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3617 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3619 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3621 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3622 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3631 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3632 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3634 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3636 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3637 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3638 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3639 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3642 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3644 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3645 to the probings of Configure.
3647 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3649 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3650 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3651 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3654 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3656 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3658 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3659 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3660 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3661 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3662 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3663 target of the change to
3664 %ENV which produced the warning.
3666 =item thread failed to start: %s
3668 (F) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
3670 =item Tied variable freed while still in use
3672 (F) An access method for a tied variable (e.g. FETCH) did something to
3673 free the variable. Since continuing the current operation is likely
3674 to result in a coredump, Perl is bailing out instead.
3676 =item times not implemented
3678 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3679 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3681 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
3683 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
3684 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
3685 specified an illegal mapping.
3686 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
3688 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
3690 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
3692 =item Too few args to syscall
3694 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3695 system call to call, silly dilly.
3697 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3699 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3700 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3701 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3703 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3705 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3706 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3707 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3708 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3711 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3712 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3713 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3714 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3716 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3717 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3719 =item Too late to run %s block
3721 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3722 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3723 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3724 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3727 =item Too many args to syscall
3729 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3731 =item Too many arguments for %s
3733 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3737 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3738 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3742 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3743 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3745 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
3747 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3748 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3750 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3752 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3753 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3754 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3756 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3758 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3761 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
3763 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
3764 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
3766 =item truncate not implemented
3768 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3769 Configure knows about.
3771 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3773 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3774 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3775 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3776 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3778 =item umask not implemented
3780 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3781 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3783 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3785 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3787 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3789 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3790 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3792 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3794 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3795 many values were temporarily localized.
3797 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3799 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3800 many blocks were entered and left.
3802 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3804 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3805 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3807 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3809 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3810 another package? See L<perlform>.
3812 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3814 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3815 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3817 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3819 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3820 since been undefined.
3822 =item Undefined subroutine called
3824 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3825 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3827 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3829 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3830 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3832 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3834 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3835 another package? See L<perlform>.
3837 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3839 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3840 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3843 =item %s: Undefined variable
3845 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3846 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3848 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3850 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3851 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3853 =item Unicode character %s is illegal
3855 (W utf8) Certain Unicode characters have been designated off-limits by
3856 the Unicode standard and should not be generated. If you really know
3857 what you are doing you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
3859 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3861 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3864 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
3866 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
3868 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3870 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3871 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3872 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
3874 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3876 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3877 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3878 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3879 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3881 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3883 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
3884 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
3885 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
3886 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
3887 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
3890 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3891 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3893 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
3895 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
3896 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
3898 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
3900 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
3901 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
3903 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
3905 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
3906 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
3908 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
3909 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
3912 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3914 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3915 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3916 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
3917 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3919 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3921 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3922 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3923 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3924 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3926 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3928 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3929 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3930 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3931 you were last editing.
3933 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3935 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3936 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3937 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3940 =item Unrecognized character %s
3942 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3943 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3944 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3946 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3948 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3949 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3950 understood literally.
3952 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3954 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3955 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
3956 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
3957 literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3958 escape was discovered.
3960 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3962 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3965 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3967 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3968 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3971 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3973 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3974 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3975 bad switch on your behalf.)
3977 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3979 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3980 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3981 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3983 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3985 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3987 =item Unsupported function %s
3989 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3990 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3992 =item Unsupported function fork
3994 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3996 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3997 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3998 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
4000 =item Unsupported script encoding
4002 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
4003 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
4005 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4007 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4008 least that's what Configure thought.
4010 =item Unterminated attribute list
4012 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4013 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4014 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4015 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
4017 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4019 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4020 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
4021 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4022 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4024 =item Unterminated compressed integer
4026 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4027 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4028 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4030 =item Unterminated <> operator
4032 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
4033 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4034 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4035 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
4037 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
4039 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4040 still valid when C<untie> was called.
4042 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4044 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4045 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
4047 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
4051 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
4053 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4054 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4056 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4058 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4059 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
4061 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
4065 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
4067 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4068 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4070 =item Useless use of %s in void context
4072 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
4073 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4074 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4075 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4076 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4077 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4082 when you meant to say
4084 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4086 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4087 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4092 when you should have said
4096 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4097 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4098 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4099 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4100 L<perlref> for more on this.
4102 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4103 since they are often used in statements like
4105 1 while sub_with_side_effects() ;
4107 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4110 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
4112 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4114 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4116 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4120 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4122 =item Useless use of %s with no values
4124 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
4125 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4126 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4127 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4128 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4129 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4131 =item "use" not allowed in expression
4133 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4134 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4136 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4138 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
4139 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4141 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4143 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4144 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4145 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4148 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4149 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4151 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4153 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4154 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4156 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4158 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4159 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4160 used. (This may change in the future.)
4162 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4164 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4165 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4167 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
4169 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4170 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4171 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
4173 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
4175 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
4176 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
4177 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
4179 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4181 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4182 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4183 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4184 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4187 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4188 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4189 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4190 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4193 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
4194 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4195 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4196 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4199 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4200 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
4201 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
4203 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4205 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4206 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4208 =item Use of $* is deprecated
4210 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
4211 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
4212 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
4213 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
4215 =item Use of $# is deprecated
4217 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
4218 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
4220 =item Use of %s is deprecated
4222 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
4223 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4224 old way has bad side effects.
4226 =item Use of freed value in iteration (perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?)
4228 (F) This is typically caused by code like the following:
4231 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
4233 You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
4234 For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
4235 reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
4236 middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
4238 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4240 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4241 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4242 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4244 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4246 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4247 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4248 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4251 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
4253 (W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
4254 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4255 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
4257 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
4258 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4259 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
4260 operators and then you assumedly know what you are doing.
4262 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4264 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4265 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4266 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4267 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4268 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4269 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
4271 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
4273 (W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
4274 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
4275 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
4276 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
4278 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
4280 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
4281 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
4282 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
4284 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
4285 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
4286 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
4287 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
4288 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
4289 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
4292 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
4294 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
4295 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
4296 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
4297 be removed in a future version.
4299 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
4301 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
4302 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
4303 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
4304 removed in a future version.
4306 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
4308 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of an UTF-16 surrogate by
4309 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
4310 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
4311 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
4312 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
4313 character. If you really know what you are doing you can turn off
4314 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4316 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
4318 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
4319 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
4320 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
4321 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
4322 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
4323 C<defined> operator.
4325 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
4327 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
4328 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
4329 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
4332 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
4334 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
4335 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
4336 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
4337 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
4338 front of your variable.
4340 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4342 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
4343 known at compile time. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4344 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4346 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
4348 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
4349 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
4350 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
4351 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
4352 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
4354 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
4356 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
4357 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
4358 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
4359 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
4361 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
4363 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
4364 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
4365 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
4366 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
4367 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
4368 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
4370 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
4371 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
4372 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
4373 between interferes with this feature.
4375 =item Variable syntax
4377 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4378 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4381 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4383 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
4384 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
4386 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
4387 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4388 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4389 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4390 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4391 variable will no longer be shared.
4393 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
4394 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
4395 will I<never> share the given variable.
4397 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4398 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
4399 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
4400 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
4402 =item Version number must be a constant number
4404 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4405 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4408 =item v-string in use/require is non-portable
4410 (W portable) The use of v-strings is non-portable to older, pre-5.6, Perls.
4411 If you want your scripts to be backward portable, use the floating
4412 point version number: for example, instead of C<use 5.6.1> say
4413 C<use 5.006_001>. This of course won't help: the older Perls
4414 won't suddenly start understanding newer features, but at least
4415 they will show a sensible error message indicating the required
4418 =item Warning: something's wrong
4420 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
4421 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
4423 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
4425 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4426 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4429 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
4431 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4432 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4433 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4434 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
4438 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4442 but in actual fact, you got
4446 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
4448 =item Wide character in %s
4450 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
4451 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print) but can be
4452 turned off by C<no warnings 'utf8';>. You are supposed to explicitly
4453 mark the filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4455 =item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
4457 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
4458 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
4459 determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
4460 of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
4462 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
4464 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4465 before now. Check your control flow.
4467 =item 'X' outside of string
4469 (F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
4470 the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4472 =item 'x' outside of string in unpack
4474 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
4475 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4477 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
4479 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4482 =item Xsub called in sort
4484 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4487 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
4489 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
4490 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
4491 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
4494 =item You need to quote "%s"
4496 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
4497 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
4498 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
4499 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
4500 what you want, put an & in front.)