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 (enabled by default).
12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
137 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
143 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
145 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
151 or a hash or array slice, such as:
153 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
154 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
156 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
158 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
159 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
162 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
164 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
165 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
166 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
168 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
170 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
171 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
172 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
173 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
174 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
175 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
177 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
179 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
180 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
182 =item assertion botched: %s
184 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
186 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
188 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
190 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
192 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
193 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
194 know which context to supply to the right side.
196 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
198 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
199 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
200 Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
201 created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
202 thread. See L<threads>.
204 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
206 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
207 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
209 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
211 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
212 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
213 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
219 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
221 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
222 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
225 bless $self, "$proto";
227 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
229 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
230 which is not in its key set.
232 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
234 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
235 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
237 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
239 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
240 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
241 outside any of those arenas.
243 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
245 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
246 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
247 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
248 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
250 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
252 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
253 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
254 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
255 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
258 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
260 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
262 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
264 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
265 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
266 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
267 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
268 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
269 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
272 =item Attempt to join self
274 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
275 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
276 to move the join() to some other thread.
278 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
280 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
281 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
282 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
283 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
284 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
287 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
289 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
290 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
291 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
294 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
296 (W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
297 can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
298 of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
300 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
303 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
305 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
306 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
307 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
309 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
311 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "locked"
312 attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is obsolete, has had no
313 effect since 5005 threads were removed, and will be removed in the next major
316 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
318 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "unique"
319 attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference. The :unique attribute has
320 had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and will be removed in the next major
323 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
325 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
326 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
327 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
328 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
330 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
332 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
333 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
334 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
336 =item Bad filehandle: %s
338 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
339 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
340 open(), or did it in another package.
342 =item Bad free() ignored
344 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
345 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
346 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
348 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
349 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
350 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
354 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
356 =item Badly placed ()'s
358 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
359 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
362 =item Bad name after %s::
364 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
365 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
374 $sym = "mypack::$var";
376 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
378 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
381 =item Bad realloc() ignored
383 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
384 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
385 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
387 =item Bad symbol for array
389 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
390 wasn't a symbol table entry.
392 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
394 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
395 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
398 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
400 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
401 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
403 =item Bad symbol for hash
405 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
406 wasn't a symbol table entry.
408 =item Bareword found in conditional
410 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
411 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
412 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
416 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
419 use constant TYPO => 1;
420 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
422 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
424 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
426 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
427 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
428 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
430 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
432 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
433 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
434 you need to predeclare a package?
436 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
438 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
439 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
442 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
444 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
445 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
446 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
447 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
448 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
450 =item \1 better written as $1
452 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
453 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
454 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
455 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
456 there are more than 9 backreferences.
458 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
460 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
461 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
462 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
464 =item bind() on closed socket %s
466 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
467 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
469 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
471 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
472 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
474 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
476 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
478 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
480 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
483 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
485 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
486 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
487 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
489 =item Callback called exit
491 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
492 exited by calling exit.
494 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
496 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
497 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
498 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
499 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
500 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
501 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
502 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
503 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
505 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
507 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
508 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
509 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
510 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
512 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
514 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
515 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
517 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
519 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
520 then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
521 triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
522 from that type of reference to a typeglob.
524 =item Cannot copy to %s in %s
526 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
527 be directly assigned not.
529 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
531 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
532 either with open() or binmode().
534 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
536 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
537 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
538 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
540 =item Can't bless non-reference value
542 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
543 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
545 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
547 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
548 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
550 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
552 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
554 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
556 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
557 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
558 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
560 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
562 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
563 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
564 like this will reproduce the error:
567 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
568 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
570 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
572 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
573 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
574 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
575 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
577 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
579 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
580 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
581 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
582 Something like this will reproduce the error:
585 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
586 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
588 =item Can't chdir to %s
590 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
591 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
593 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
595 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
598 =item Can't coerce array into hash
600 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
601 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
602 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
604 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
606 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
607 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
617 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
619 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
621 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
622 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
624 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
626 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
627 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
629 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
631 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
634 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
636 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
637 quotas or other plumbing problems.
639 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
641 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
642 class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration. The semantics may be
643 extended for other types of variables in future.
645 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
647 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
648 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
650 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
652 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
653 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
655 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
657 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
660 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
662 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
663 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
664 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
666 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
668 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
669 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
670 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
672 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
674 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
675 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
676 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
678 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
680 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
681 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
683 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
685 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
686 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
689 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
691 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
692 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
693 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
694 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
696 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
698 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
699 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
700 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
701 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
702 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
703 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
708 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
709 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
710 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
712 =item Can't execute %s
714 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
715 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
717 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
719 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
720 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
722 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
724 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
725 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
726 See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
727 for a complete list of available properties.
729 =item Can't find label %s
731 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
732 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
734 =item Can't find %s on PATH
736 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
739 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
741 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
742 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
743 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
745 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
747 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
748 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
749 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
751 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
753 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
754 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
755 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
757 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
759 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
760 example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
761 Unicode property, see
762 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
763 for a complete list of available properties.
764 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
765 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
770 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
773 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
775 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
778 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
780 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
781 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
782 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
783 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
784 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
785 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
786 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
787 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
788 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
789 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
790 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
791 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
792 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
793 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
794 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
796 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
798 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
799 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
801 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
803 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
804 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
806 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
808 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
809 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
811 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
813 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
814 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
815 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
816 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
818 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
820 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
821 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
822 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
824 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
826 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
829 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
831 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
832 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
833 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
834 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
836 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
838 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
839 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
840 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
841 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
842 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
843 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
845 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
847 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
848 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
851 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
853 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
854 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
855 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
856 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
857 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
858 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
861 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
863 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
864 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
866 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
868 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
869 may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
870 incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
871 between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
872 extension was built against an older version of the library that is
873 installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
876 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
878 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
879 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
880 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
883 =item Can't localize through a reference
885 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
886 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
887 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
888 that $ref will still be a reference.
890 =item Can't locate %s
892 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
893 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
894 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
895 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
896 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
897 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
898 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
900 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
902 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
903 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
904 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
905 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
907 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
909 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
910 for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
911 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
913 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
915 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
916 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
917 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
919 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
921 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
922 doesn't seem to exist.
924 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
926 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
927 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
929 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
931 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
934 =item Can't modify %s in %s
936 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
937 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
939 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
941 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
944 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
946 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
947 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
949 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
951 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
954 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
956 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
957 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
958 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
959 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
960 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
961 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
963 =item Can't open %s: %s
965 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
966 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
967 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
968 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
971 =item Can't open a reference
973 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
974 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
978 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
979 open is not supported.
981 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
983 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
984 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
985 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
986 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
988 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
990 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
991 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
992 the command line for writing.
994 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
996 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
997 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
998 command line for reading.
1000 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1002 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1003 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1004 the command line for writing.
1006 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1008 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1009 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1012 =item Can't open perl script%s
1014 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1016 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1017 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1018 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1020 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1022 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1023 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1024 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1025 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1028 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1030 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1031 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1032 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1033 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1034 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1035 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1037 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1039 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1040 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1041 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1043 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1045 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1046 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1048 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1050 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1051 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1053 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1055 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1056 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1057 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1059 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1061 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1062 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1065 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1067 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1068 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1070 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1072 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1073 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1074 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1075 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1078 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1080 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1081 open already. Bizarre.
1083 =item Can't take log of %g
1085 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1086 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1087 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1090 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1092 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1093 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1094 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1096 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1098 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1099 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1100 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1104 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1105 as the main Perl stack.
1107 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1109 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1110 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1111 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1112 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1114 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1116 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1117 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1118 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1120 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1122 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1123 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1125 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1127 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1128 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1130 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1132 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1133 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1134 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1136 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1138 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1139 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1140 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1142 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1144 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1147 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1149 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1150 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1151 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1152 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1155 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1157 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1158 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1159 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1160 is inside a big-endian group.
1162 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1164 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1165 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1166 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1167 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1170 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1172 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1173 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1174 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1176 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1178 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1179 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1181 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1183 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1184 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1185 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1187 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1189 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1190 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1191 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1192 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1193 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1196 =item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
1198 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1199 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1200 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1201 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1203 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1205 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1206 references can be weakened.
1208 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1210 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1211 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1212 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1214 =item Character following "\\c" must be ASCII
1216 (F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
1218 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1224 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1225 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1226 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1230 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1233 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1239 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1240 all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1243 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1245 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1251 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1252 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1253 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1255 pack("c", $x & 255);
1257 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1260 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1262 (W unpack) You tried something like
1264 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1266 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1267 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1268 modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1270 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1272 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1274 (W pack) You tried something like
1276 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1278 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1279 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1280 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1282 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1284 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1286 (W unpack) You tried something like
1288 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1290 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1291 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1292 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1294 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1296 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1298 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1300 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1302 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1303 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1305 =item Code missing after '/'
1307 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1308 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1310 =item %s: Command not found
1312 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1313 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1315 =item Compilation failed in require
1317 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1318 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1319 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1321 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1323 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1324 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1325 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1326 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1327 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1328 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1329 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1330 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1331 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1333 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1335 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1336 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1337 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1338 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1339 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1340 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1341 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1344 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1346 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1347 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1348 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1349 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1350 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1351 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1352 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1355 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1357 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1358 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1359 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1361 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1363 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1364 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1365 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1366 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1369 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1371 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1372 the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1373 forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
1377 =item Constant is not %s reference
1379 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1380 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1381 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1382 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1383 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1385 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1387 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1388 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1389 commentary and workarounds.
1391 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1393 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1394 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1397 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1399 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1400 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1402 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1404 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1406 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1408 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1409 expression compiler gave it.
1411 =item corrupted regexp program
1413 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1416 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1418 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1420 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1422 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1423 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1426 =item \\c%c" more clearly written simply as "%c
1428 (D deprecated) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1429 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1430 written as simply itself.
1432 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1434 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1435 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1436 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1437 which case it indicates something else.
1439 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1440 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1442 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1444 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1445 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1446 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1448 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1450 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1451 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1452 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1454 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1456 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1457 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1459 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1461 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1462 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1463 that triggers this error.
1465 =item Deprecated character in \\N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \\N{%s<-- HERE %s
1467 (D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
1468 But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names are
1469 deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character and
1470 continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces, parentheses or
1473 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1475 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1476 There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1477 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1478 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1479 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1480 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1481 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1483 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1487 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1489 Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1490 have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1492 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1494 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1496 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1497 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1498 to create a dangling reference.
1500 =item Did not produce a valid header
1504 =item %s did not return a true value
1506 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1507 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1508 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1509 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1511 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1513 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1516 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1518 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1519 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1522 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1524 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1525 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1530 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1531 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1533 =item Document contains no data
1537 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1539 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1540 define a C<$VERSION.>
1542 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1544 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1545 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1547 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1549 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1551 =item do_study: out of memory
1553 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1555 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1557 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1558 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1559 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1560 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1561 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1562 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1563 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1564 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1566 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1568 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1569 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1571 =item dump is not supported
1573 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1575 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1577 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1580 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1582 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1583 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1585 =item elseif should be elsif
1587 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1588 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1589 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1590 unlikely to be what you want.
1594 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1595 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1596 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1598 =item entering effective %s failed
1600 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1601 effective uids or gids failed.
1603 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1605 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1606 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1607 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1609 =item Error converting file specification %s
1611 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1612 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1613 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1614 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1615 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1617 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1619 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1620 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1621 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1623 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
1625 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1626 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1627 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1628 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1629 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1630 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1632 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1634 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1635 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1636 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1638 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1640 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1641 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1643 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1646 =item Excessively long <> operator
1648 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1649 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1650 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1651 variable and glob that.
1653 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1655 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1657 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
1659 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1661 =item Exiting eval via %s
1663 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1664 goto, or a loop control statement.
1666 =item Exiting format via %s
1668 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1669 goto, or a loop control statement.
1671 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1673 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1674 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1675 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1677 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1679 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1680 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1682 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1684 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1685 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1687 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1689 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1690 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1691 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1692 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1694 =item %s: Expression syntax
1696 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1697 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1699 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1701 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1702 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1703 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1705 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1707 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1708 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1709 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1710 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1711 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1713 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1715 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1716 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1717 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1718 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1720 =item fcntl is not implemented
1722 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1723 PDP-11 or something?
1725 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1727 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1730 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1732 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1733 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1734 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1737 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1739 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1740 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1741 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1742 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1744 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1746 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1747 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1748 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1749 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1750 Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1751 (also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1753 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1755 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1756 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1759 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1761 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1762 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
1764 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1766 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1767 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1768 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1771 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1773 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1774 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1775 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1778 =item Format not terminated
1780 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1781 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1783 =item Format %s redefined
1785 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1788 no warnings 'redefine';
1789 eval "format NAME =...";
1792 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1802 (or something like that).
1804 =item %s found where operator expected
1806 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1807 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1808 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1809 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1811 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1813 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1815 =item gethostent not implemented
1817 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1818 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1821 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1823 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1824 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1826 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1828 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1829 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1831 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1833 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1834 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1835 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1837 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1839 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
1840 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
1841 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1842 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1844 =item glob failed (%s)
1846 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1847 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1848 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1849 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1850 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1851 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1852 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1853 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1854 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1855 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1856 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1858 =item Glob not terminated
1860 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1861 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1862 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1863 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1865 =item gmtime(%.0f) too large
1867 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was larger than
1868 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1869 date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1870 not-a-number value).
1872 =item gmtime(%.0f) too small
1874 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was smaller than
1875 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1876 date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1877 not-a-number value).
1879 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1881 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1882 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1884 =item goto must have label
1886 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1887 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1889 =item ()-group starts with a count
1891 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
1892 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1893 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1895 =item %s had compilation errors.
1897 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1899 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1901 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1902 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1903 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1905 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1907 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1908 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1910 =item %s has too many errors
1912 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1913 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1915 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1917 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1918 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1919 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1921 =item Identifier too long
1923 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1924 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1925 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1926 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1928 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
1930 (W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return a
1931 zero length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
1932 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
1933 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
1935 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1937 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1939 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1941 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1942 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1945 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1947 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1948 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1949 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1950 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1951 to your Perl administrator.
1953 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1955 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
1956 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1958 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1960 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1961 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1963 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
1965 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
1967 =item Illegal division by zero
1969 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1970 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1973 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1975 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1976 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1977 number stopped before the illegal character.
1979 =item Illegal modulus zero
1981 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1982 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1984 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1986 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1987 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1989 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1991 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1993 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1995 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1996 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1998 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2000 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2001 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2003 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2005 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2006 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2007 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2009 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2011 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2012 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2013 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2016 =item (in cleanup) %s
2018 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2019 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2020 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2021 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2022 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2024 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2025 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2027 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2029 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2030 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2031 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2033 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2035 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2036 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2037 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2039 =item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2041 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2042 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2043 either consume text or fail.
2045 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2048 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2050 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2051 of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2052 C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2053 as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2055 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2057 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2058 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2059 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2060 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2061 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2062 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2063 L<perlsec> for more information.
2065 =item Insecure directory in %s
2067 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2068 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2069 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2072 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2074 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2075 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2076 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2077 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2078 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2080 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2082 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2083 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2084 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2085 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2086 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2087 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2088 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2089 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2092 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2094 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2095 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2096 integers for your architecture.
2098 =item Integer overflow in version
2100 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2101 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2102 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2103 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2104 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2107 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2109 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2110 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2113 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2115 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2116 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2117 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2118 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2119 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2120 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2122 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2124 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2125 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2128 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2130 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2131 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2132 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2133 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2135 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2137 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2138 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2140 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2142 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2143 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2145 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2147 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2148 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2150 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2152 (W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2153 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2154 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2155 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2156 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2157 escape was discovered.
2159 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2161 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2162 or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2163 (Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2165 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2167 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2168 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2169 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2170 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2171 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2173 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2175 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2176 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2178 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2180 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2181 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2182 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2185 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2187 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2188 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2189 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2190 list was terminated too soon.
2192 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2194 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2195 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2196 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2199 =item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
2201 (F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
2202 that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
2205 =item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
2207 (F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
2208 See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
2210 =item ioctl is not implemented
2212 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2213 strange for a machine that supports C.
2215 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2217 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2218 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2220 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2222 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2223 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2226 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2228 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2229 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2231 =item $* is no longer supported
2233 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
2234 been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In previous versions of perl the use of
2235 C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line matching within a string.
2237 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2238 modifiers. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value then all regular
2239 expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
2241 =item $# is no longer supported
2243 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
2244 been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2245 printf/sprintf functions instead.
2247 =item `%s' is not a code reference
2249 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2250 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
2253 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2255 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2258 =item junk on end of regexp
2260 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2262 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2264 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2265 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2268 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2270 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2271 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2274 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2276 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2277 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2280 =item leaving effective %s failed
2282 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2283 effective uids or gids failed.
2285 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2287 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2288 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2289 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2291 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2293 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2294 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn_flags|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn_flags> or similar), but
2295 tried to insert a character that couldn't be part of the current input.
2296 This is an inherent pitfall of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the
2297 reasons to avoid it. Where it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only
2298 plain ASCII is recommended.
2300 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2302 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2305 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2307 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2308 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2311 =item localtime(%.0f) too large
2313 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was larger
2314 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2315 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2316 not-a-number value).
2318 =item localtime(%.0f) too small
2320 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was smaller
2321 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2322 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2323 not-a-number value).
2325 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2327 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2328 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2330 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2332 (W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2333 for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2334 hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2335 because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2336 are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2337 You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2339 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
2341 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2342 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2343 instead on the filehandle.)
2345 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2347 (W misc) Making a subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined
2348 by declaring the subroutine with a lvalue attribute is not
2349 possible. To make the the subroutine a lvalue subroutine add the
2350 lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the the declaration before
2353 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2355 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2356 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2357 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2359 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2361 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2362 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2364 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2366 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2367 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2369 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2371 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2378 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2379 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2380 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2381 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2383 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2385 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2386 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2387 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2388 when the function is called.
2390 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2392 (S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2393 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2395 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2396 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2397 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2399 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2400 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2401 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2404 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2406 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2408 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2409 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2411 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2413 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2415 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2417 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2418 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2420 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2422 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2423 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2425 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2427 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2428 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2430 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%d) exceeded
2432 (F) Perl aborted due to a too high number of signals pending. This
2433 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2434 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2435 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2436 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2438 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2440 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2441 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2442 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2445 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2447 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2448 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2451 =item % may not be used in pack
2453 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2454 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2455 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2457 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2459 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2460 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2462 =item Method %s not permitted
2466 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2468 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2469 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2470 ended earlier on the current line.
2472 =item Misplaced _ in number
2474 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2475 separate two digits.
2477 =item Missing argument in %s
2479 (W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2482 =item Missing argument to -%c
2484 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2485 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2487 =item Missing braces on \N{}
2489 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2490 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space (or
2491 comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2492 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately follow
2495 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2497 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2498 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2500 =item Missing command in piped open
2502 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2503 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2506 =item Missing control char name in \c
2508 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2511 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2513 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2514 they have a name with which they can be found.
2516 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2518 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2519 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2520 can vary from one line to the next.
2522 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2524 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2525 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2527 =item Missing right brace on %s
2529 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2531 =item Missing right brace on \\N{} or unescaped left brace after \\N
2534 C<\N> has two meanings.
2536 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed
2537 in braces, meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that name.
2538 Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2539 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns, it doesn't
2540 have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2542 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only) in
2543 patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short for
2544 C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2546 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately by a
2547 left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if
2548 the braces form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes
2549 that this means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
2550 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a C<\N{>
2551 and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2553 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was mistakenly
2554 omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and
2555 raises this error. If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant
2556 the latter, escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
2558 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2560 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2561 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2564 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2566 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2567 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2568 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2570 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2572 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2573 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2574 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2576 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2579 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2581 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2582 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2585 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2586 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2589 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2591 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2592 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2595 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2597 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2598 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2600 =item Module name must be constant
2602 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2604 =item Module name required with -%c option
2606 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2607 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2608 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2610 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
2612 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2613 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2614 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2615 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2617 =item msg%s not implemented
2619 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2621 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2623 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2624 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2626 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2628 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2629 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2630 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2632 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2634 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2637 =item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
2639 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2640 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2641 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2643 =item \\N in a character class must be a named character: \\N{...}
2645 (F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
2646 character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses its
2647 specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not what you want.
2649 =item \\N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
2651 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or sequence
2652 was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that bypass the lexer,
2653 such as using single-quotish context, or an extra backslash in double quotish:
2655 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
2656 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
2659 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
2661 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2664 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2668 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2670 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2671 doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2673 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2674 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2676 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2679 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2681 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2682 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2683 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2684 provided for this purpose.
2686 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2687 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2688 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2689 will not trigger this warning.
2691 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \\N{U+...}
2693 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2694 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than 0 - 9
2695 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2697 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2699 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2700 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2702 =item Negative length
2704 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2705 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2707 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2709 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2710 greater than or equal to zero.
2712 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2714 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2715 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2716 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2718 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2719 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2721 =item %s never introduced
2723 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2724 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2726 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2728 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2729 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2732 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2734 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2735 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2736 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2737 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2739 =item No comma allowed after %s
2741 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2742 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2743 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2745 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2746 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2747 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2748 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2749 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2750 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2751 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2752 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2753 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2754 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2755 this error was triggered?
2757 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2759 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2760 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2761 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2763 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2765 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2766 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2767 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2770 =item No dbm on this machine
2772 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2773 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2775 =item No DB::sub routine defined
2777 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2778 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2779 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2780 of each ordinary subroutine call.
2782 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2784 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2786 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2788 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2789 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2790 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2792 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2794 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2795 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2797 =item No input file after < on command line
2799 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2800 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2801 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2805 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2806 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2808 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2810 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2811 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2812 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2813 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2815 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2817 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2818 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2820 =item No output file after > on command line
2822 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2823 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2824 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2826 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2828 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2829 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2830 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2832 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2834 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2835 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2836 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2838 =item No Perl script found in input
2840 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2841 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2843 =item No setregid available
2845 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2848 =item No setreuid available
2850 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2853 =item No %s specified for -%c
2855 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2856 you haven't specified one.
2858 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2860 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2861 but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2862 package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2864 =item No such class %s
2866 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2867 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2869 =item No such hook: %s
2871 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl. Currently, Perl
2872 accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks
2874 =item No such pipe open
2876 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2877 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2878 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2880 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2882 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2883 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2884 names on your system.
2886 =item Not a CODE reference
2888 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2889 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2890 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2893 =item Not a format reference
2895 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2896 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2898 =item Not a GLOB reference
2900 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2901 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2902 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2903 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2905 =item Not a HASH reference
2907 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2908 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2909 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2911 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2913 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2914 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2915 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2917 =item Not a perl script
2919 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2920 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2923 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2925 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2926 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2927 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2929 =item Not a subroutine reference
2931 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2932 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2933 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2936 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2938 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2939 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2941 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2943 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2945 =item Not enough format arguments
2947 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2948 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2952 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2953 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2956 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2958 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2959 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2960 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2961 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2962 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2964 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
2966 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
2967 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
2968 select. See L<perlfunc/select>
2970 =item Null filename used
2972 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2973 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2975 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2977 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2980 =item Null picture in formline
2982 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2983 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2984 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2988 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2990 =item NULL regexp argument
2992 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2994 =item NULL regexp parameter
2996 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2998 =item Number too long
3000 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
3001 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
3002 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3003 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3006 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
3008 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3009 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3012 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3014 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
3015 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3016 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
3018 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
3020 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3022 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3023 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
3025 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3027 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3028 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3030 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
3032 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3033 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3035 =item Offset outside string
3037 (F, W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3038 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
3039 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3040 take place when going past the end of the string when either
3041 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
3042 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3045 =item %s() on unopened %s
3047 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3048 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3049 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3051 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3053 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3054 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3058 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3062 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3064 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3066 (W io deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3067 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3068 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3071 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3073 (W io deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3074 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3075 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3078 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
3080 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3081 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3082 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3083 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
3085 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3087 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3088 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3089 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3090 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3093 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
3095 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3096 in the current lexical scope.
3098 =item Out of memory!
3100 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3101 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3102 no option but to exit immediately.
3104 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3105 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3106 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3107 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3108 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3110 =item Out of memory during %s extend
3112 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3113 the largest possible memory allocation.
3115 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
3117 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3118 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
3119 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3120 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
3122 =item Out of memory during request for %s
3124 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3125 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3128 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3129 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
3130 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3131 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
3132 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3133 where the failed request happened.
3135 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3137 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
3138 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3139 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
3141 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
3143 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3144 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3147 =item '.' outside of string in pack
3149 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3150 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3152 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
3154 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3155 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3157 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3159 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3160 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3161 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3163 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3165 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3166 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3169 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3171 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3172 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3174 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3176 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3177 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3178 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3179 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
3181 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3183 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3184 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3188 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3189 page. See L<perlform>.
3193 (P) An internal error.
3195 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3197 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3198 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3199 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3200 enter this branch on this platform.
3202 =item panic: ck_grep
3204 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3206 =item panic: ck_split
3208 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3210 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3212 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3213 there are in the savestack.
3215 =item panic: del_backref
3217 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3220 =item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3222 (P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3223 last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3224 an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3225 a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3229 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3230 it wasn't an eval context.
3232 =item panic: do_subst
3234 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3237 =item panic: do_trans_%s
3239 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
3242 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3244 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
3249 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3253 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3254 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3256 =item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3258 (P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
3259 but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3260 contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3261 adds a new object to the hash.
3263 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3265 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3267 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3269 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3271 =item panic: kid popen errno read
3273 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3277 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3278 it wasn't a block context.
3280 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3282 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3285 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3287 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3288 invalid enum on the top of it.
3290 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3292 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3293 references to an object.
3297 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3299 =item panic: memory wrap
3301 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3303 =item panic: pad_alloc
3305 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3306 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3308 =item panic: pad_free curpad
3310 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3311 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3313 =item panic: pad_free po
3315 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3317 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
3319 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3320 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3322 =item panic: pad_sv po
3324 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3326 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3328 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3329 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3331 =item panic: pad_swipe po
3333 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3335 =item panic: pp_iter
3337 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3339 =item panic: pp_match%s
3341 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3344 =item panic: pp_split
3346 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3348 =item panic: realloc
3350 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3352 =item panic: restartop
3354 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3355 didn't supply the destination.
3359 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3360 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3362 =item panic: scan_num
3364 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3366 =item panic: sv_chop %s
3368 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3369 scalar's string buffer.
3371 =item panic: sv_insert
3373 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3376 =item panic: top_env
3378 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
3380 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3382 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3385 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3387 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3388 to even) byte length.
3390 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3392 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3393 to even) byte length.
3397 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3399 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3401 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3402 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3403 nesting limit is exceeded.
3405 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3408 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3410 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3416 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3418 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
3420 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3422 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3423 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3424 redirected it with select().)
3426 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3428 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3429 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3430 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3432 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3434 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3435 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3436 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3437 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3439 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3441 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3442 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3443 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3445 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3447 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3448 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3450 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3452 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3454 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3456 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3458 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3459 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3462 are supported and installed on your system.
3463 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3465 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3466 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3467 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3468 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3469 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3470 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3471 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3472 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3473 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3474 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3476 =item pid %x not a child
3478 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3479 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3480 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3482 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3484 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3486 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3488 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3489 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3490 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3491 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3492 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3494 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3496 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3497 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3499 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3501 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3502 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3503 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3504 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3505 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3506 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3508 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3510 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3511 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3512 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3513 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3514 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3515 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3517 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3519 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3520 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3521 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3522 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3523 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3524 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3526 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3528 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3529 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3530 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3531 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3533 You probably wrote something like this:
3540 when you should have written this:
3547 If you really want comments, build your list the
3548 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3552 'b', # another comment
3555 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3557 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3558 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3559 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3562 You probably wrote something like this:
3566 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3567 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3571 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3573 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3574 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3575 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3576 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3578 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3580 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3581 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3583 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3585 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3586 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3587 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3588 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3590 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3592 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3593 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3594 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3595 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3597 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3599 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3600 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
3601 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
3602 followed by the word 'bar'.
3604 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3605 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3607 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3608 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3609 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3611 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3613 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3617 is now misinterpreted as
3621 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3622 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3623 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3626 =item Premature end of script headers
3630 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3632 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3633 before now. Check your control flow.
3635 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3637 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3638 before now. Check your control flow.
3640 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3642 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3643 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3644 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3645 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3648 =item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3650 (W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is useless,
3651 since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3653 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3655 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3656 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3658 =item Prototype not terminated
3660 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3663 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3665 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3666 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3667 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3669 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3671 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3672 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3673 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3675 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3677 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3678 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3679 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3680 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3681 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3683 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3686 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3688 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3689 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3690 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3691 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3693 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3695 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3696 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3698 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3700 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3701 before now. Check your control flow.
3703 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3705 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3707 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3709 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3711 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
3713 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3715 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3717 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3720 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3722 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3723 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3724 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3726 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3728 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3729 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3730 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
3732 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3734 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3735 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3738 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3740 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3741 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3742 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3743 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3745 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3746 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3747 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3748 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3750 =item Reference is already weak
3752 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3753 Doing so has no effect.
3755 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3757 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3758 a reference count of other than 1.
3760 =item Reference to invalid group 0
3762 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
3763 capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
3764 backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
3765 backreferences), but using 0 does not make sense.
3767 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3769 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3770 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3771 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3772 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
3774 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3777 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3779 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
3780 not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
3781 where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
3783 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3786 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3788 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3789 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3790 as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3791 correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3793 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3796 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3798 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3799 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3800 of the C<....> part.
3802 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3805 =item regexp memory corruption
3807 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3808 expression compiler gave it.
3810 =item Regexp out of space
3812 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3815 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3817 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
3818 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3819 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3821 =item Replacement list is longer than search list
3823 (W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
3824 search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
3827 =item Reversed %s= operator
3829 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3830 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3832 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3834 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
3835 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3837 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3839 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3840 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3841 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3842 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3844 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3846 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3847 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3848 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3849 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3850 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3851 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3852 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3854 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3855 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3856 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3859 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3861 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3862 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3863 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3864 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3865 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3866 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3867 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3869 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3870 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3871 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3874 =item Search pattern not terminated
3876 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3877 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3878 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3880 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
3881 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3882 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3883 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3885 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
3887 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
3890 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
3891 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
3892 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
3893 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
3895 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3897 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3898 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3900 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3902 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
3903 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3905 =item select not implemented
3907 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3909 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3911 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3912 the current implementation.
3914 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3916 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3917 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3919 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3921 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3922 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3924 =item sem%s not implemented
3926 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3928 =item send() on closed socket %s
3930 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3931 before now. Check your control flow.
3933 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3935 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3936 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3939 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3941 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3942 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3943 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3945 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3947 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3948 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3949 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3951 =item Sequence \\%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3953 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
3954 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
3956 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3958 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3959 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3960 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3963 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3965 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3966 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3967 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3970 =item 500 Server error
3976 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3977 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3978 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3979 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3980 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3981 produce a valid header".
3983 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3985 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3986 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3987 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3988 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3989 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3990 Please see the following for more information:
3992 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3993 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3994 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
3996 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3998 =item setegid() not implemented
4000 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4001 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4004 =item seteuid() not implemented
4006 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4007 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4010 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
4012 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4013 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4016 =item setrgid() not implemented
4018 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4019 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4022 =item setruid() not implemented
4024 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4025 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4028 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4030 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4031 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
4032 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4034 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
4036 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
4037 world, because the world might have written on it already.
4039 =item Setuid script not plain file
4041 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
4042 but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
4044 =item shm%s not implemented
4046 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4048 =item !=~ should be !~
4050 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4051 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4052 operators: probably not what you intended.
4054 =item <> should be quotes
4056 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4059 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4061 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
4062 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4063 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4064 probably not what you had in mind.
4066 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
4068 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4071 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
4073 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4074 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
4076 =item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4078 (F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4079 overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4082 =item sort is now a reserved word
4084 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4085 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4087 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4089 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4090 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4092 =item splice() offset past end of array
4094 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
4095 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
4096 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
4097 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
4102 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4103 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
4104 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
4106 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
4108 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4109 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4110 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4111 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4114 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
4116 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4117 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4119 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
4121 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4122 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4123 C<can> may break this.
4125 =item Subroutine %s redefined
4127 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
4130 no warnings 'redefine';
4131 eval "sub name { ... }";
4134 =item Substitution loop
4136 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4137 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4138 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
4139 L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
4141 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
4143 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4144 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4145 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4147 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
4149 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4150 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4151 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4153 =item substr outside of string
4155 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
4156 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4157 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4158 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4159 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
4161 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4163 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
4164 inferior to its current type.
4166 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4168 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
4169 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
4170 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
4171 clustering parentheses:
4173 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4175 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4176 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4178 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4180 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
4181 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4182 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4184 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
4186 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4187 and effective uids or gids.
4191 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4195 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4197 A keyword is misspelled.
4198 A semicolon is missing.
4200 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4201 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4202 A closing quote is missing.
4204 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4205 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4206 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4207 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
4208 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
4209 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4210 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4211 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
4212 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
4215 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4217 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4218 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4221 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4223 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4224 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4225 or "my $var" or "our $var".
4227 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4229 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4231 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4233 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4235 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
4237 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4238 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4239 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4240 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
4242 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
4244 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4245 before now. Check your control flow.
4247 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4249 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4250 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4252 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4254 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4255 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
4257 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
4259 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4260 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4262 =item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4264 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4265 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4267 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
4269 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4270 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4279 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4280 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
4282 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
4284 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4285 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
4286 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
4287 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4290 =item The %s function is unimplemented
4292 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4293 to the probings of Configure.
4295 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
4297 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4298 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4299 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4302 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4304 (F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
4306 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
4308 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4310 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
4311 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4312 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4313 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4314 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4315 target of the change to
4316 %ENV which produced the warning.
4318 =item thread failed to start: %s
4320 (W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
4322 =item times not implemented
4324 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4325 suspect you're not running on Unix.
4327 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4329 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4330 B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
4331 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4332 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4335 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4336 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
4337 editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of Perl's first
4338 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
4340 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4341 B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
4343 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4345 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4346 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4347 specified an illegal mapping.
4348 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4350 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4352 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
4354 =item Too few args to syscall
4356 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4357 system call to call, silly dilly.
4359 =item Too late for "-%s" option
4361 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4362 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4364 In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options are
4365 not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4367 The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as well
4368 (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either specify
4369 this option on the command line, or, if your system supports it, make your
4370 script executable and run it directly instead of passing it to perl.
4372 =item Too late to run %s block
4374 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4375 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
4376 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4377 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4380 =item Too many args to syscall
4382 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
4384 =item Too many arguments for %s
4386 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4390 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4391 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4395 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4396 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4398 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
4400 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4401 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
4403 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
4405 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
4406 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4407 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
4409 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
4411 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4412 y/// or y[][] construct.
4414 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4416 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4417 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4419 =item truncate not implemented
4421 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4422 Configure knows about.
4424 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4426 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
4427 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4428 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
4429 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4431 =item umask not implemented
4433 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4434 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
4436 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4438 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4440 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4442 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4443 many execution contexts were entered and left.
4445 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4447 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4448 many values were temporarily localized.
4450 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4452 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4453 many blocks were entered and left.
4455 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4457 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4458 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
4460 =item Undefined format "%s" called
4462 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4463 another package? See L<perlform>.
4465 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4467 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4468 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4470 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4472 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4473 since been undefined.
4475 =item Undefined subroutine called
4477 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4478 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4480 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
4482 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4483 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4485 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
4487 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4488 another package? See L<perlform>.
4490 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4492 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4493 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4496 =item %s: Undefined variable
4498 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4499 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4501 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4503 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4504 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4506 =item Unicode non-character %s is illegal for interchange
4508 (W utf8) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are defined by the
4509 Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those are legal codepoints, but are
4510 reserved for internal use; so, applications shouldn't attempt to exchange
4511 them. In some cases, this message is also given if you use a codepoint that
4512 isn't in Unicode--that is it is above the legal maximum of U+10FFFF. These
4513 aren't legal at all in Unicode, so they are illegal for interchange, but can be
4514 used internally in a Perl program. If you know what you are doing you can turn
4515 off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4517 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
4519 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4522 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4524 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
4525 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
4526 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
4528 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4530 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4531 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4532 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4533 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4534 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4535 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4537 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4539 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4540 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4541 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4542 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
4544 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4546 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4548 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4550 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4551 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4552 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4553 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4554 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4557 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4558 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4560 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4562 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4563 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4565 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4567 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4568 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4570 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4572 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4573 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4575 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4576 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
4578 =item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4580 (F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4581 after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4582 L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4586 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4588 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
4589 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
4590 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4591 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4593 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4595 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
4596 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4597 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4598 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4600 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
4602 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4603 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4604 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4605 you were last editing.
4607 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4609 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4610 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4611 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4614 =item Unrecognized character %s; marked by <-- HERE after %s near column %d
4616 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
4617 in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you tried
4618 to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
4620 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4622 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4623 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4624 understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
4625 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4626 escape was discovered.
4628 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
4630 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4631 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4632 change in a future version of Perl.
4634 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4636 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4637 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4638 change in a future version of Perl.
4639 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4640 escape was discovered.
4642 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4644 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4645 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4648 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
4650 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4651 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4652 bad switch on your behalf.)
4654 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4656 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4657 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
4658 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
4660 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4662 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4664 =item Unsupported function %s
4666 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4667 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4669 =item Unsupported function fork
4671 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4673 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4674 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4675 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
4677 =item Unsupported script encoding %s
4679 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
4680 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
4682 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4684 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4685 least that's what Configure thought.
4687 =item Unterminated attribute list
4689 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4690 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4691 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4692 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
4694 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4696 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4697 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
4698 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4699 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4701 =item Unterminated compressed integer
4703 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4704 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4705 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4707 =item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4709 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
4710 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4712 =item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4714 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
4715 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4717 =item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4719 (F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
4720 a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
4722 =item Unterminated <> operator
4724 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
4725 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4726 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4727 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
4729 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
4731 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4732 still valid when C<untie> was called.
4734 =item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4736 (F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4737 See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4739 =item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4741 (F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4742 See L<Win32> for more information.
4744 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4746 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4747 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
4749 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
4753 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
4755 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4756 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4758 =item Useless localization of %s
4760 (W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4761 legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4762 some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4764 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4766 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4767 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
4769 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
4773 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
4775 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4776 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4778 =item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
4780 (W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
4781 same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
4782 about the /d modifier.
4784 =item Useless use of %s in void context
4786 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
4787 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4788 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4789 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4790 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4791 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4796 when you meant to say
4798 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4800 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4801 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4806 when you should have said
4810 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4811 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4812 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4813 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4814 L<perlref> for more on this.
4816 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4817 since they are often used in statements like
4819 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
4821 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4824 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
4826 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4828 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4830 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4834 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4836 =item Useless use of %s with no values
4838 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
4839 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4840 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4841 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4842 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4843 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4845 =item "use" not allowed in expression
4847 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4848 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4850 =item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated
4852 (D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
4853 is deprecated. See L<perlvar/"$[">.
4855 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4857 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
4858 form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4860 =item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
4862 (D deprecated) The values you give to a format should be
4863 separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
4865 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4867 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4868 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4869 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4872 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4873 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4875 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4877 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4878 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4880 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4882 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4883 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4884 used. (This may change in the future.)
4886 =item Use of := for an empty attribute list is deprecated
4888 (D deprecated) The construction C<my $x := 42> currently
4889 parses correctly in perl, being equivalent to C<my $x : = 42>
4890 (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>). This useless
4891 construct is now deprecated, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new
4892 operator in the future.
4894 =item Use of freed value in iteration
4896 (F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
4897 This error is typically caused by code like the following:
4900 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
4902 You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
4903 For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
4904 reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
4905 middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
4907 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4909 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4910 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4912 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
4914 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4915 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4916 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
4918 =item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
4920 (D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
4921 scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
4923 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4925 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4926 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4927 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4928 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4931 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4932 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4933 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4934 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4937 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
4938 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4939 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4940 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4943 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4944 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
4945 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
4947 =item Use of octal value above 377 is deprecated
4949 (D deprecated, W regexp) There is a constant in the regular expression whose
4950 value is interpeted by Perl as octal and larger than 377 (255 decimal, 0xFF
4951 hex). Perl may take this to mean different things depending on the rest of
4952 the regular expression. If you meant such an octal value, convert it to
4953 hexadecimal and use C<\xHH> or C<\x{HH}> instead. If you meant to have
4954 part of it mean a backreference, use C<\g> for that. See L<perlre>.
4956 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4958 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4959 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4961 =item Use of %s is deprecated
4963 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
4964 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4965 old way has bad side effects.
4967 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4969 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4970 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4971 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4973 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4975 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4976 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4977 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4980 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
4982 (W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
4983 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4984 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
4986 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
4987 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4988 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
4989 operators and then you assumably know what you are doing.
4991 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4993 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4994 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4995 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4996 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4997 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4998 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
5000 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
5002 (W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
5003 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
5004 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
5005 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
5007 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
5009 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
5010 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
5011 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
5013 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
5014 name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
5015 do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
5016 in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
5017 displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
5018 program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
5019 . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
5020 even though there is no C<.> in your program.
5022 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
5024 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
5025 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
5026 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
5027 be removed in a future version.
5029 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
5031 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
5032 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
5033 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
5034 removed in a future version.
5036 =item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class
5038 (W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of more than one character.
5039 Currently all but the first one are discarded when used in a regular
5040 expression pattern bracketed character class.
5042 =item Using just the first characters returned by \N{}
5044 (W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of characters. There is a finite
5045 limit as to the number of characters that can be used, which this sequence
5046 exceeded. In the message, the characters in the sequence are separated by
5047 dots, and each is shown by its ordinal in hex. Anything to the left of the
5048 C<HERE> was retained; anything to the right was discarded.
5050 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
5052 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of a UTF-16 surrogate by
5053 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
5054 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
5055 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
5056 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
5057 character. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn off
5058 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
5060 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
5062 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
5063 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
5064 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
5065 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
5066 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
5067 C<defined> operator.
5069 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
5071 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
5072 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
5073 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
5076 =item Variable "%s" is not available
5078 (W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5079 attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
5080 This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
5081 declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
5082 (Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
5083 subs are created at run-time.) For example,
5085 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
5087 At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
5088 since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
5089 the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
5090 now been created and is live:
5092 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
5094 The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
5095 gone out of scope, for example,
5103 Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
5104 executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
5106 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
5108 (W misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
5109 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
5110 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
5111 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
5112 front of your variable.
5114 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
5116 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
5117 known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
5119 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5121 (W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the current
5122 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
5123 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
5124 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
5125 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
5127 =item Variable syntax
5129 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
5130 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
5133 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
5135 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
5136 lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
5138 When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
5139 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
5140 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5141 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5142 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
5143 variable will no longer be shared.
5145 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5146 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
5147 reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
5148 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
5150 =item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5152 (F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an argument
5153 or check that you are using the right verb.
5155 =item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5157 (F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
5158 argument or check that you are using the right verb.
5160 =item Version number must be a constant number
5162 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
5163 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
5166 =item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
5168 (W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
5171 =item Warning: something's wrong
5173 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
5174 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5176 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
5178 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
5179 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
5182 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
5184 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
5185 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
5186 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
5187 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
5191 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
5195 but in actual fact, you got
5199 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
5201 =item Wide character in %s
5203 (S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
5204 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
5205 way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
5206 output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
5207 warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
5208 cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
5209 filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
5211 =item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
5213 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
5214 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
5215 determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
5216 of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
5218 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
5220 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
5221 before now. Check your control flow.
5223 =item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
5225 When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
5226 into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5227 this encoding, for example
5229 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5231 if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5233 =item 'X' outside of string
5235 (F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5236 the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5238 =item 'x' outside of string in unpack
5240 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5241 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5243 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5245 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
5246 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
5247 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
5250 =item You need to quote "%s"
5252 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5253 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5254 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5255 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5256 what you want, put an & in front.)
5258 =item Your random numbers are not that random
5260 (F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5261 not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5262 Something Very Wrong.
5268 L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>.