3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (non-trappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that will be
20 called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
24 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
25 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
26 The symbols C<"%-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
30 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
32 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34 if you want to localize a package variable.
36 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope
38 (S) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectively
39 eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always
40 a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
41 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
44 =item "no" not allowed in expression
46 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
49 =item "use" not allowed in expression
51 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
54 =item % may only be used in unpack
56 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
57 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
58 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
60 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
62 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
63 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
64 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
66 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
68 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
73 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
75 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
80 or a hash slice, such as
82 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
83 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
85 =item %s did not return a true value
87 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
88 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
89 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
90 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
92 =item %s found where operator expected
94 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
95 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
96 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
97 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
99 =item %s had compilation errors
101 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
103 =item %s has too many errors
105 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
106 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
108 =item %s matches null string many times
110 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
111 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
113 =item %s never introduced
115 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
116 before it could possibly have been used.
120 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
122 =item %s: Command not found
124 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
125 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
128 =item %s: Expression syntax
130 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
131 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
134 =item %s: Undefined variable
136 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
137 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
142 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
143 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
146 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
148 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
149 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
151 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
153 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
154 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
156 =item 500 Server error
160 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
162 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
163 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
165 =item @ outside of string
167 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
168 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
170 =item accept() on closed fd
172 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
173 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
175 =item Allocation too large: %lx
177 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
179 =item Allocation too large
181 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes.
183 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
185 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
187 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
189 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
190 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
191 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
193 =item Args must match #! line
195 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
196 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
197 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
198 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
200 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
202 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
203 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
204 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
206 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
208 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
209 is now heavily deprecated.
211 =item assertion botched: %s
213 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
215 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
217 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
219 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
221 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
222 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
223 know which context to supply to the right side.
225 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
227 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
228 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
231 =item Attempt to free non-existent shared string
233 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
234 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
235 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
236 that can no longer be found in the table.
238 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
240 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
241 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
242 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
243 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
246 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
248 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
250 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
252 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
253 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
254 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
255 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
256 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
257 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
259 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
261 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
262 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
263 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
265 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
267 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
268 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
269 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
270 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
272 =item Bad filehandle: %s
274 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
275 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
276 did it in another package.
278 =item Bad free() ignored
280 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
281 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
282 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
284 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
285 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
286 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
291 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
293 =item Bad name after %s::
295 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
296 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
305 $sym = "mypack::$var";
307 =item Bad symbol for array
309 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
310 wasn't a symbol table entry.
312 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
314 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
315 wasn't a symbol table entry.
317 =item Bad symbol for hash
319 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
320 wasn't a symbol table entry.
322 =item Badly placed ()'s
324 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
325 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
328 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
330 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
331 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
333 =item bind() on closed fd
335 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
336 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
338 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
340 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
342 =item Callback called exit
344 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
345 exited by calling exit.
347 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
349 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
350 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
351 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
352 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
354 =item Can't "last" outside a block
356 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
357 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
358 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
359 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
360 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
361 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
363 =item Can't "next" outside a block
365 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
366 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
367 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
368 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
369 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
371 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
373 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
374 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
375 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
376 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
377 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
379 =item Can't bless non-reference value
381 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
382 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
384 =item Can't break at that line
386 (S) A warning intended for while running within the debugger, indicating
387 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
390 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
392 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
393 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
394 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
396 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
398 (F) A method call must know what package it's supposed to run in. It
399 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
400 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
401 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
403 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
405 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
406 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
407 neither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)
408 Something like this will reproduce the error:
411 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
412 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
414 =item Can't chdir to %s
416 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
417 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
419 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
421 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
422 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
432 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
434 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
436 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
437 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
439 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
441 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
442 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
444 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
446 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
447 or other plumbing problems.
449 =item Can't declare %s in my
451 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
452 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
454 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
456 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
458 =item Can't do in-place edit without backup
460 (F) You're on a system such as MSDOS that gets confused if you try reading
461 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say B<-i>C<.bak>, or some
464 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
466 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
468 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
470 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
471 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
473 =item Can't do setegid!
475 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
478 =item Can't do seteuid!
480 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
482 =item Can't do setuid
484 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
485 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
486 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
487 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
488 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
489 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
491 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
493 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
494 without flags is emulated.
496 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
498 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
499 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
501 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
503 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
504 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
506 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
508 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
509 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
510 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
511 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
512 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
513 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
517 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
518 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
519 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
521 =item Can't execute %s
523 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
524 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions.
526 =item Can't find label %s
528 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
529 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
531 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
533 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
534 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
535 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
537 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.)
541 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
543 =item Unsupported function fork
545 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
547 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
548 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
549 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
551 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
553 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
554 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
555 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
556 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
557 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
558 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
559 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
560 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
561 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
562 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
563 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
564 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
565 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
566 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
568 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
570 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
571 can't retrieve its name for later use.
573 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
575 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
576 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
578 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
580 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
581 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
582 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
585 =item Can't localize a reference
587 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which is not allowed because
588 the compiler can't determine whether $ref will end up pointing to anything
589 with a symbol table entry, and a symbol table entry is necessary to
592 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
594 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
595 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
596 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
599 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
601 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
602 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set
603 the PERL5LIB environment variable to say where the extra library is,
604 or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
605 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
607 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
609 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
610 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
611 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
613 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
615 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
620 (F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while trying to process
621 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
623 =item Can't modify %s in %s
625 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
626 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
628 =item Can't modify non-existent substring
630 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
633 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
635 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
638 =item Can't open %s: %s
640 (S) An inplace edit couldn't open the original file for the indicated reason.
641 Usually this is because you don't have read permission for the file.
643 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
645 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
646 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
647 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
648 and then read it in under a different file handle.
650 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
652 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
653 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
654 command line for writing.
656 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
658 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
659 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
661 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
663 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
664 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
667 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
669 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
670 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
672 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
674 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
676 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
678 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
679 you don't have write permission to the directory.
681 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
683 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
684 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
686 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
688 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
691 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
693 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
694 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
696 =item Can't stat script "%s"
698 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
699 it open already. Bizarre.
701 =item Can't swap uid and euid
703 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
706 =item Can't take log of %g
708 (F) Logarithms are defined on only positive real numbers.
710 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
712 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
713 negative number. There's a Complex package available for Perl, though,
714 if you really want to do that.
716 =item Can't undef active subroutine
718 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
719 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
720 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
724 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
725 as the main Perl stack.
727 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
729 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
730 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
731 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
732 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
734 =item Can't upgrade to undef
736 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
737 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
738 code calling sv_upgrade.
740 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
742 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
743 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
744 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
745 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
748 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
750 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
752 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
754 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
755 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
756 test the type of the reference, if need be.
758 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
760 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
761 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
762 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
763 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
764 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
766 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
768 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
769 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
771 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
773 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
774 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
776 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
778 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
779 be a defined value. This helps to de-lurk some insidious errors.
781 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
783 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
784 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
785 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
786 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
789 =item Can't use subscript on %s
791 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
792 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
793 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
795 =item Can't write to temp file for B<-e>: %s
797 (F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
798 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
800 =item Can't x= to read-only value
802 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
803 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
804 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
806 =item Cannot open temporary file
808 (F) The create routine failed for some reason while trying to process
809 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
811 =item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
813 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
814 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
815 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
817 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
819 (W) A novice will sometimes say
823 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
824 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
826 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
828 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
830 =item connect() on closed fd
832 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
833 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
835 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
837 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
838 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
841 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
843 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
844 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
847 =item Copy method did not return a reference
849 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
851 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
853 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
855 =item corrupted regexp pointers
857 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
858 expression compiler gave it.
860 =item corrupted regexp program
862 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
863 a valid magic number.
865 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
867 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
868 times than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
869 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
870 case it indicates something else.
872 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
874 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
876 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
878 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
879 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
883 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
884 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
886 =item Do you need to pre-declare %s?
888 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
889 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
890 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
891 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
892 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
893 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
894 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
895 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
898 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
900 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
902 =item do_study: out of memory
904 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
906 =item Duplicate free() ignored
908 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
911 =item elseif should be elsif
913 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
914 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
915 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
916 unlikely to be what you want.
918 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
920 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
921 The interpreter is immediately exited.
923 =item Error converting file specification %s
925 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
926 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
927 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
928 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
929 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
931 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
933 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
935 =item Exiting eval via %s
937 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
938 a goto, or a loop control statement.
940 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
942 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
943 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
944 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
946 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
948 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
949 a goto, or a loop control statement.
951 =item Exiting substitution via %s
953 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
954 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
956 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
958 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
959 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
960 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
961 the Perl source code is distressed.
963 =item fcntl is not implemented
965 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
968 =item Filehandle %s never opened
970 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
971 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
972 the FileHandle package.
974 =item Filehandle %s opened for only input
976 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
977 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
978 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
979 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
982 =item Filehandle opened for only input
984 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
985 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
986 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
987 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
990 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
992 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
993 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
994 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
997 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
999 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1000 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1001 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1004 =item Format %s redefined
1006 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1010 eval "format NAME =...";
1013 =item Format not terminated
1015 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1016 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1018 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1028 (or something like that).
1030 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1032 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1034 =item gethostent not implemented
1036 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1037 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1040 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1042 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1043 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1045 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1047 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1048 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1051 =item Glob not terminated
1053 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1054 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1055 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1056 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1058 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1060 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables must
1061 either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1062 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1064 =item goto must have label
1066 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1067 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1069 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1071 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1072 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1073 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1075 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1077 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1078 is now heavily deprecated.
1080 =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
1082 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
1083 to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
1084 names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
1085 appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
1086 might directly modify logical name tables and introduce non-standard names,
1087 or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
1089 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1091 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1092 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1093 here documents (e.g. C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>). Note that Perl always
1094 opens scripts in text mode, so this error should only occur in C<eval>.
1096 =item Illegal division by zero
1098 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1099 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1101 =item Illegal modulus zero
1103 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1104 don't take to this kindly.
1106 =item Illegal octal digit
1108 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1110 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
1112 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1113 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1115 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1117 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1118 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1119 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1120 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1121 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1122 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1123 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1125 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1127 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1128 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1129 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1130 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1131 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1132 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1133 for more information.
1135 =item Insecure directory in %s
1137 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1138 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1143 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1144 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> is derived from data supplied (or
1145 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1146 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1148 =item Integer overflow in hex number
1150 (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
1151 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
1154 =item Integer overflow in octal number
1156 (S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
1157 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
1160 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1162 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1163 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1164 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1165 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
1166 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1167 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1168 and execute the specified command.
1170 =item internal disaster in regexp
1172 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1174 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1176 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1178 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1180 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1181 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1183 =item ioctl is not implemented
1185 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1186 strange for a machine that supports C.
1188 =item junk on end of regexp
1190 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1192 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1194 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1195 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1196 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1198 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1200 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1201 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1204 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1206 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1207 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1210 =item listen() on closed fd
1212 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1213 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1215 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1217 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1218 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1220 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1222 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1223 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1224 ended earlier on the current line.
1226 =item Misplaced _ in number
1228 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1230 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1232 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1233 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1234 one line to the next.
1236 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1238 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1239 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1241 =item Missing operator before %s?
1243 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1244 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1246 =item Missing right bracket
1248 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1249 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1252 =item Missing semicolon on previous line?
1254 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1255 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1256 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1258 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1260 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1261 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1262 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1264 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1267 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1269 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1271 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1272 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1275 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1277 (F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1278 be created for some peculiar reason.
1280 =item Module name must be constant
1282 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1284 =item msg%s not implemented
1286 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1288 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1290 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1291 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1293 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1295 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names. If you
1296 had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1297 again somehow to suppress the message (the C<use vars> pragma is
1298 provided for just this purpose).
1300 =item Negative length
1302 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1303 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1305 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1307 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1308 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1310 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1311 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1315 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1316 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1318 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1320 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1321 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1322 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1325 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1327 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1329 =item No comma allowed after %s
1331 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1332 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1333 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1335 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1336 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1337 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1338 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1339 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1340 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1341 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1342 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1343 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1344 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1345 this error was triggered?
1347 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1349 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1350 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither you
1351 want to pipe the output from this command.
1353 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1355 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1356 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1357 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1358 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1359 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1362 =item No dbm on this machine
1364 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1365 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1367 =item No DBsub routine
1369 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1370 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1371 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1372 ordinary subroutine call.
1374 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1376 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1377 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1378 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1380 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1382 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1383 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1384 from which to read data for stdin.
1386 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1388 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1389 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1390 whither you wanted to redirect stdout.
1392 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1394 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1395 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1396 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1398 =item No Perl script found in input
1400 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1401 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1403 =item No setregid available
1405 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1408 =item No setreuid available
1410 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1413 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1415 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1418 =item No such pipe open
1420 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1421 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1422 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1424 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1426 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1427 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1429 =item Not a CODE reference
1431 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1432 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1433 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1434 See also L<perlref>.
1436 =item Not a format reference
1438 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1439 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1441 =item Not a GLOB reference
1443 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1444 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1445 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1446 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1448 =item Not a HASH reference
1450 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1451 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1452 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1454 =item Not a perl script
1456 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1457 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1460 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1462 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1463 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1464 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1466 =item Not a subroutine reference
1468 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1469 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1470 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1471 See also L<perlref>.
1473 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1475 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1476 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1478 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1480 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1481 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1482 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1484 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1486 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1488 =item Not enough format arguments
1490 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1493 =item Null filename used
1495 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1496 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1498 =item Null picture in formline
1500 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1501 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1502 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1504 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1506 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1510 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1512 =item NULL regexp argument
1514 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1516 =item NULL regexp parameter
1518 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1520 =item Odd number of elements in hash list
1522 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash list, which is odd,
1523 because hash lists come in key/value pairs.
1525 =item Offset outside string
1527 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1528 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1529 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1530 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1534 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1538 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1540 =item Operation `%s': no method found,%s
1542 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1543 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1544 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1545 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1546 true. See L<overload>.
1548 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1550 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1551 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1552 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1553 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1554 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1556 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1558 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1559 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1561 =item Out of memory!
1563 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1564 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1566 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1567 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1568 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1569 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
1570 error is trappable I<once>.
1572 =item Out of memory during request for %s
1574 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1575 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1576 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1577 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1581 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1584 =item panic: ck_grep
1586 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1588 =item panic: ck_split
1590 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1592 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1594 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1595 are in the savestack.
1599 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1600 it wasn't an eval context.
1602 =item panic: do_match
1604 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1606 =item panic: do_split
1608 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1610 =item panic: do_subst
1612 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1614 =item panic: do_trans
1616 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1620 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1621 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1623 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1625 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1627 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1629 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1633 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1634 it wasn't a block context.
1636 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1638 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
1640 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1642 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1643 invalid enum on the top of it.
1647 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1649 =item panic: mapstart
1651 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1653 =item panic: null array
1655 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1657 =item panic: pad_alloc
1659 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1660 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1662 =item panic: pad_free curpad
1664 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1665 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1667 =item panic: pad_free po
1669 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1671 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
1673 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1674 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1676 =item panic: pad_sv po
1678 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1680 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1682 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1683 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1685 =item panic: pad_swipe po
1687 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1689 =item panic: pp_iter
1691 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1693 =item panic: realloc
1695 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1697 =item panic: restartop
1699 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1700 didn't supply the destination.
1704 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1705 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
1707 =item panic: scan_num
1709 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
1711 =item panic: sv_insert
1713 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
1716 =item panic: top_env
1718 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
1722 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
1724 =item Pareneses missing around "%s" list
1726 (W) You said something like
1732 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
1734 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
1736 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
1738 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
1739 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
1740 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
1742 =item Permission denied
1744 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
1746 =item pid %d not a child
1748 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
1749 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
1750 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
1752 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
1754 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
1755 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
1757 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
1759 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
1760 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
1761 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
1762 exclamation marks parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1765 You probably wrote something like this:
1772 when you should have written this:
1779 If you really want comments, build your list the
1780 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
1784 'b', # another comment
1787 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
1789 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
1790 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
1791 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1794 You probably wrote something like this:
1798 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
1799 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
1803 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
1805 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
1806 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
1807 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
1808 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
1810 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
1812 (S) The old irregular construct
1816 is now misinterpreted as
1820 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
1821 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
1822 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead of "||".
1824 =item print on closed filehandle %s
1826 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
1827 Check your logic flow.
1829 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
1831 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1832 Check your logic flow.
1834 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
1836 (W) The compiler found a bare word where it expected a conditional,
1837 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
1838 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
1842 =item Prototype mismatch: (%s) vs (%s)
1844 (S) The subroutine being defined had a pre-declared (forward) declaration
1845 with a different function prototype.
1847 =item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
1849 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
1850 Check your logic flow.
1852 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
1854 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
1856 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
1858 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
1859 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
1860 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
1862 =item Recursive inheritance detected
1864 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
1865 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
1867 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
1869 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
1870 reference count of other than 1.
1872 =item regexp memory corruption
1874 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1875 expression compiler gave it.
1877 =item regexp out of space
1879 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
1881 =item regexp too big
1883 (F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
1884 address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
1885 the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
1886 Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
1887 way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
1889 =item Reversed %s= operator
1891 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
1892 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
1894 =item Runaway format
1896 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
1897 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
1898 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
1899 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
1900 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
1902 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
1904 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
1905 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1906 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
1907 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
1908 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1909 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
1911 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
1912 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
1913 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1916 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
1918 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
1919 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1920 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
1921 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
1922 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1923 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
1925 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
1926 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
1927 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1930 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
1932 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script with its setuid
1933 or setgid bit not set. This doesn't make much sense.
1935 =item Search pattern not terminated
1937 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
1938 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1940 =item seek() on unopened file
1942 (W) You tried to use the seek() function on a filehandle that was either
1943 never opened or has been closed since.
1945 =item select not implemented
1947 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
1949 =item sem%s not implemented
1951 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
1953 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
1955 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
1956 that had previously been marked as free.
1958 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
1960 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
1961 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
1963 =item Send on closed socket
1965 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
1966 Check your logic flow.
1968 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
1970 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
1971 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
1973 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
1975 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
1976 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
1978 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
1980 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
1985 Also known as "500 Server error".
1987 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
1989 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
1990 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
1991 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
1992 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
1993 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
1994 for more information:
1996 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/idiots-guide.html
1997 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/perl-cgi-faq.html
1998 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
1999 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2000 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2002 =item setegid() not implemented
2004 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2005 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2008 =item seteuid() not implemented
2010 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2011 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2014 =item setrgid() not implemented
2016 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2017 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2020 =item setruid() not implemented
2022 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2023 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2026 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2028 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2029 because the world might have written on it already.
2031 =item shm%s not implemented
2033 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2035 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2037 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2039 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2041 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2042 put it into the wrong package?
2044 =item sort is now a reserved word
2046 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2047 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2049 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2051 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2052 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2053 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2055 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2057 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2058 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2062 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2063 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2064 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2066 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2068 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2069 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has been closed since.
2071 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2073 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2074 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2075 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2076 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2079 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2081 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2082 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2085 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2087 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2091 eval "sub name { ... }";
2094 =item Substitution loop
2096 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2097 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2098 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2099 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2101 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2103 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2104 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2106 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2108 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2109 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2111 =item substr outside of string
2113 (W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a string.
2114 That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the length of
2115 the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
2117 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2119 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2120 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2124 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2126 A keyword is misspelled.
2127 A semicolon is missing.
2129 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2130 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2131 A closing quote is missing.
2133 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2134 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2135 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2136 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2137 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2138 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2139 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2140 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2141 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2143 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2145 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2146 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2149 =item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
2151 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm",
2152 or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
2154 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2156 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2157 Check your logic flow.
2159 =item tell() on unopened file
2161 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2162 never opened or has been closed since.
2164 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2166 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2167 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2169 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2171 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2172 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2181 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2182 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2184 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2186 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2187 to the probings of Configure.
2189 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2191 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2192 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2193 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2194 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2197 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2199 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2200 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2201 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2203 =item times not implemented
2205 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2206 you're not running on Unix.
2208 =item Too few args to syscall
2210 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2211 system call to call, silly dilly.
2213 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2215 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2216 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its argument
2217 list. This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in
2218 a script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the
2219 environment. So Perl gives up.
2221 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2222 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2223 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2224 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2226 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2227 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2233 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2234 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2237 =item Too many args to syscall
2239 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2241 =item Too many arguments for %s
2243 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2245 =item trailing \ in regexp
2247 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2250 =item Translation pattern not terminated
2252 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2255 =item Translation replacement not terminated
2257 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2260 =item truncate not implemented
2262 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2263 Configure knows about.
2265 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2267 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2268 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2269 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2270 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2272 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2274 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal literals
2275 always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2277 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2279 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2281 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2283 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2284 contexts were entered and left.
2286 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2288 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2289 values were temporarily localized.
2291 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2293 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2294 were entered and left.
2296 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2298 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2299 scalars were allocated and freed.
2301 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2303 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2304 another package? See L<perlform>.
2306 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2308 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2309 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2311 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2313 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2314 has since been undefined.
2316 =item Undefined subroutine called
2318 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2319 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2321 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2323 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2324 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2326 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2328 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2329 another package? See L<perlform>.
2331 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2333 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2334 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2336 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2338 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2340 =item unmatched () in regexp
2342 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2343 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2344 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2346 =item Unmatched right bracket
2348 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2349 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2350 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2353 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2355 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2356 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2359 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2361 (W) You used a bare word that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2362 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2363 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2365 =item Unrecognized character \%03o ignored
2367 (S) A garbage character was found in the input, and ignored, in case it's
2368 a weird control character on an EBCDIC machine, or some such.
2370 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2372 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2373 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2375 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s
2377 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2378 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2379 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2381 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2383 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2384 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2385 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chop>.
2387 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2389 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2391 =item Unsupported function %s
2393 (F) This machines doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2394 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2396 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2398 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2399 least that's what Configure thought.
2401 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
2403 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2404 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2405 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2406 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2408 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2410 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
2411 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2413 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2415 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
2416 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2417 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2418 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2420 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2422 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2423 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2425 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2427 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2428 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2431 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
2433 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2434 wish to use a blank line as the terminator of the here-document.
2436 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2438 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2439 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2440 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2442 =item Use of uninitialized value
2444 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2445 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2446 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2448 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2450 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2451 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2452 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2453 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2454 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2455 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2459 when you meant to say
2461 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2463 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2464 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2469 when you should have said
2473 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2474 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2475 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2476 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2477 L<perlref> for more on this.
2479 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
2481 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
2482 valid when C<untie> was called.
2484 =item Value of %s construct can be "0"; test with defined()
2486 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), or
2487 C<readdir> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
2488 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which
2489 is probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in
2490 conditional expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
2492 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
2494 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2495 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2496 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2497 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2498 on the front of your variable.
2500 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
2502 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
2503 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
2504 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
2505 the outermost subroutine. For example:
2507 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
2509 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
2510 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
2511 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
2512 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
2513 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
2514 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
2517 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
2518 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
2519 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
2520 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
2522 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
2524 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
2525 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
2527 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
2528 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
2529 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
2530 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
2531 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
2532 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
2534 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
2535 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
2536 will I<never> share the given variable.
2538 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
2539 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
2540 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
2541 they are automatically re-bound to the current values of such
2544 =item Variable syntax
2546 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2547 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2550 =item Warning: something's wrong
2552 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
2553 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
2555 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
2557 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
2558 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
2560 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
2562 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2563 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2564 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2565 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2569 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
2573 but in actual fact, you got
2577 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
2579 =item Write on closed filehandle
2581 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2582 Check your logic flow.
2584 =item X outside of string
2586 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
2587 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2589 =item x outside of string
2591 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
2592 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2594 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
2596 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2598 =item Xsub called in sort
2600 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2602 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
2604 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
2605 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
2606 Use a filename instead.
2608 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
2610 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
2611 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
2612 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
2613 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
2615 =item You need to quote "%s"
2617 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
2618 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
2619 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
2620 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
2622 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
2624 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
2625 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2626 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2628 =item \1 better written as $1
2630 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
2631 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
2632 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
2633 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
2634 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
2636 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
2638 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2639 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
2640 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
2642 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
2644 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2645 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
2646 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
2647 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
2650 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
2657 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2659 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2660 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2662 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2664 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2672 with non-empty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2673 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may appear
2674 if components are not found, or are too long. See L<perlos2/"PERLLIB_PREFIX">.
2676 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2678 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2679 C<sh>-shell in. See L<perlos2/"PERL_SH_DIR">.
2681 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2683 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2684 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2685 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2686 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See L<perlos2/"Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT">.