3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring 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]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and
116 transliteration (tr///) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
141 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
143 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
149 or a hash or array slice, such as:
151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
154 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
156 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
157 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
162 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
166 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
168 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
169 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
171 =item assertion botched: %s
173 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
175 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
177 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
179 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
181 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
182 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
183 know which context to supply to the right side.
185 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
187 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
188 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
189 outside any of those arenas.
191 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
193 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
194 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
195 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
196 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
198 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
200 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
201 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
202 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
203 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
206 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
208 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
210 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
212 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
213 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
214 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
215 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
216 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
217 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
220 =item Attempt to join self
222 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
223 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
224 to move the join() to some other thread.
226 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
228 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
229 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
230 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
231 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
232 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
235 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
237 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
238 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
239 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
241 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
243 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
244 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
245 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
246 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
248 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
250 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
251 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
252 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
254 =item Bad filehandle: %s
256 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
257 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
258 open(), or did it in another package.
260 =item Bad free() ignored
262 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
263 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
264 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
266 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
267 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
268 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
272 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
274 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
276 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
277 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
280 =item Badly placed ()'s
282 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
283 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
286 =item Bad name after %s::
288 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
289 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
298 $sym = "mypack::$var";
300 =item Bad realloc() ignored
302 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
303 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
304 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
306 =item Bad symbol for array
308 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
309 wasn't a symbol table entry.
311 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
313 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
314 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
316 =item Bad symbol for hash
318 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
319 wasn't a symbol table entry.
321 =item Bareword found in conditional
323 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
324 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
325 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
329 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
332 use constant TYPO => 1;
333 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
335 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
337 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
339 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
340 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
341 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
343 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
345 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
346 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
347 you need to predeclare a package?
349 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
351 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
352 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
355 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
357 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
358 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
359 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
360 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
361 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
363 =item \1 better written as $1
365 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
366 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
367 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
368 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
369 there are more than 9 backreferences.
371 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
373 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
374 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
375 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
377 =item bind() on closed socket %s
379 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
380 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
382 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
384 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
386 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
388 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
391 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
393 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
394 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
396 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
398 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
399 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
400 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
402 =item Callback called exit
404 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
405 exited by calling exit.
407 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
409 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
410 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
411 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
412 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
413 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
414 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
415 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
416 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
418 =item / cannot take a count
420 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
421 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
424 =item Can't bless non-reference value
426 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
427 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
429 =item Can't break at that line
431 (S internal) A warning intended to only be printed while running within
432 the debugger, indicating the line number specified wasn't the location
433 of a statement that could be stopped at.
435 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
437 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
438 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
439 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
441 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
443 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
444 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
445 like this will reproduce the error:
448 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
449 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
451 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
453 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
454 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
455 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
456 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
458 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
460 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
461 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
462 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
463 Something like this will reproduce the error:
466 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
467 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
469 =item Can't chdir to %s
471 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
472 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
474 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
476 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
479 =item Can't coerce array into hash
481 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
482 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
483 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
485 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
487 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
488 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
498 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
500 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
502 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
503 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
505 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
507 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
508 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
510 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
512 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
513 quotas or other plumbing problems.
515 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
517 (S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
518 qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
519 for other types of variables in future.
521 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
523 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
524 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
526 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
528 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
529 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
531 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
533 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
536 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
538 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
539 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
540 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
542 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
544 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
545 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
546 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
548 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m
550 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
551 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
553 =item Can't do setegid!
555 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
558 =item Can't do seteuid!
560 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
562 =item Can't do setuid
564 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
565 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
566 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
567 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
568 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
569 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
571 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
573 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
574 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
576 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
578 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
579 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
582 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
584 (W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
585 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
586 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
587 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
588 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
589 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
594 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
595 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
596 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
598 =item Can't execute %s
600 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
601 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
603 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
605 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
606 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
608 =item Can't find label %s
610 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
611 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
613 =item Can't find %s on PATH
615 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
618 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
620 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
621 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
622 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
624 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
626 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
627 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
628 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
630 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
632 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
633 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
634 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
638 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
641 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
643 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
644 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
645 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
646 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
647 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
648 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
649 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
650 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
651 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
652 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
653 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
654 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
655 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
656 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
657 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
659 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
661 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
662 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
664 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
666 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
667 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
669 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
671 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
672 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
674 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
676 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
677 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
678 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
679 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
681 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
683 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
684 "string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
685 probably don't want to.)
687 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
689 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
690 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
691 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
692 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
694 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
696 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
697 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
698 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
699 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
700 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
701 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
703 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
705 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
706 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
707 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
708 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
709 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
710 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
713 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
715 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
716 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
717 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
720 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
722 (F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
723 reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
724 can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
725 directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
727 =item Can't localize through a reference
729 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
730 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
731 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
732 that $ref will still be a reference.
734 =item Can't locate %s
736 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
737 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
738 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
739 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
740 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
741 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
742 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
744 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
746 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
747 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
748 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
749 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
751 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
753 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
754 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
755 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
757 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
759 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
760 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
761 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
763 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
765 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
766 doesn't seem to exist.
768 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
770 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
773 =item Can't modify %s in %s
775 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
776 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
778 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
780 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
783 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
785 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
786 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
788 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
790 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
793 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
795 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
796 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
797 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
798 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
799 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
800 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
802 =item Can't open %s: %s
804 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
805 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
806 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
807 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
810 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
812 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
813 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
814 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
815 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
817 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
819 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
820 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
821 the command line for writing.
823 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
825 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
826 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
827 command line for reading.
829 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
831 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
832 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
833 the command line for writing.
835 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
837 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
838 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
841 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
843 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
845 =item Can't read CRTL environ
847 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
848 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
849 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
850 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
853 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
855 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
856 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
857 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
858 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
860 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
862 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
863 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
864 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
865 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
866 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
867 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
869 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
871 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
872 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
873 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
875 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
877 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
878 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
880 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
882 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
883 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
885 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
887 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
888 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
889 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
891 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
893 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
896 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
898 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
899 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
902 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
904 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
905 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
907 =item Can't stat script "%s"
909 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
910 open already. Bizarre.
912 =item Can't swap uid and euid
914 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
917 =item Can't take log of %g
919 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
920 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
921 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
924 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
926 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
927 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
928 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
930 =item Can't undef active subroutine
932 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
933 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
934 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
938 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
939 as the main Perl stack.
941 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
943 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
944 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
945 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
946 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
948 =item Can't upgrade to undef
950 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
951 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
954 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
956 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
957 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
959 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
961 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
962 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
964 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
966 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
967 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
968 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
970 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
972 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
975 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
977 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
978 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
979 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
980 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
983 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
985 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
986 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
987 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
988 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
991 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
993 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
994 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
995 test the type of the reference, if need be.
997 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
999 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1000 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1002 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1004 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1005 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1006 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1008 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1010 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1011 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1012 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1013 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1014 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1017 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1019 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1020 references can be weakened.
1022 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1024 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1025 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1026 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1028 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1030 (W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1031 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for
1032 example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not
1033 currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future
1034 extensions and will cause fatal errors.
1036 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1038 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1039 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future
1040 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
1041 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
1042 with the backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1044 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1046 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1047 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future
1048 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
1049 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
1050 with the backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1052 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1054 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. See
1057 =item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
1059 (W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
1061 chmod 777, $filename
1063 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1064 equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1067 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1069 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1071 =item %s: Command not found
1073 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1074 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1076 =item Compilation failed in require
1078 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1079 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1080 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1082 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1084 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1085 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1086 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1087 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1088 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1089 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1090 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1091 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1092 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1094 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1096 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1097 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1098 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1100 =item constant(%s): %s
1102 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1103 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1104 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1105 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1108 =item Constant is not %s reference
1110 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1111 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1112 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1113 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1114 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1116 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1118 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1119 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1120 commentary and workarounds.
1122 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1124 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1125 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1128 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1130 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy
1133 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1135 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1137 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1139 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1140 expression compiler gave it.
1142 =item corrupted regexp program
1144 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1147 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1149 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1151 =item C<-p> destination: %s
1153 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1154 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1155 redirected it with select().)
1157 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1159 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1160 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1162 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1164 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1165 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1166 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1167 which case it indicates something else.
1169 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1171 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1172 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1173 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1175 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1177 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1178 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1179 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1181 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1183 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1184 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1185 that triggers this error.
1187 =item Did not produce a valid header
1191 =item %s did not return a true value
1193 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1194 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1195 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1196 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1198 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1200 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1203 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1205 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1206 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1209 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1211 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1212 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1217 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1218 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1220 =item Document contains no data
1224 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1226 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1228 =item do_study: out of memory
1230 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1232 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1234 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1235 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1236 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1237 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1238 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1239 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1240 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1241 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1243 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1245 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1248 =item elseif should be elsif
1250 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1251 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1252 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1253 unlikely to be what you want.
1255 =item entering effective %s failed
1257 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1258 effective uids or gids failed.
1260 =item Error converting file specification %s
1262 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1263 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1264 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1265 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1266 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1268 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1270 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1271 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1272 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1274 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1276 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1277 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1278 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1279 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1280 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1281 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1283 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1285 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1286 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1287 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1289 =item Excessively long <> operator
1291 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1292 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1293 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1294 variable and glob that.
1296 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1298 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1300 =item Exiting eval via %s
1302 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1303 goto, or a loop control statement.
1305 =item Exiting format via %s
1307 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1308 goto, or a loop control statement.
1310 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1312 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1313 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1314 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1316 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1318 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1319 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1321 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1323 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1324 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1326 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1328 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1329 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1330 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1331 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1333 =item %s: Expression syntax
1335 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1336 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1338 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1340 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1341 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1342 routines has been prematurely ended.
1344 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1346 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1347 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The
1348 "-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider
1349 quoting the "-", "\-". See L<perlre>.
1351 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1353 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1354 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1355 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1356 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1358 =item fcntl is not implemented
1360 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1361 PDP-11 or something?
1363 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1365 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
1366 never initialized. You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call
1367 a constructor from the FileHandle package.
1369 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1371 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1372 to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1373 or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1374 the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1376 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1378 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1379 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1380 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1381 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1383 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1385 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1386 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1387 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1390 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1392 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1393 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1394 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1397 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1399 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1400 some time before now. Check your logic flow. flock() operates on
1401 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1404 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
1406 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
1407 you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
1409 =item Format not terminated
1411 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1412 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1414 =item Format %s redefined
1416 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1420 eval "format NAME =...";
1423 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1433 (or something like that).
1435 =item %s found where operator expected
1437 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1438 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1439 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1440 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1442 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1444 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1446 =item gethostent not implemented
1448 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1449 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1452 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1454 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1455 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1457 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1459 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1460 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1462 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1464 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1465 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1466 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1468 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1470 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1471 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1472 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1475 =item glob failed (%s)
1477 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1478 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1479 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1480 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1481 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1482 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1483 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1484 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1485 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1486 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1487 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1489 =item Glob not terminated
1491 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1492 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1493 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1494 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1496 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1498 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1499 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1501 =item goto must have label
1503 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1504 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1506 =item %s had compilation errors
1508 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1510 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1512 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1513 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1514 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1516 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1518 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1519 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1521 =item %s has too many errors
1523 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1524 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1526 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1528 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1529 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1530 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1532 =item Identifier too long
1534 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1535 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1536 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1537 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1539 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1541 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1543 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1545 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1546 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1549 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1551 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1552 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1553 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1554 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1555 to your Perl administrator.
1557 =item Illegal division by zero
1559 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1560 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1563 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1565 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1566 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1567 number stopped before the illegal character.
1569 =item Illegal modulus zero
1571 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1572 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1574 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1576 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1577 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1579 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1581 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1583 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1585 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1586 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1588 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1590 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1591 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1593 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1595 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1596 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1597 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1599 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1601 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1602 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1603 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1606 =item (in cleanup) %s
1608 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1609 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1610 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1611 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1612 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1614 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1615 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1617 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1619 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1620 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1621 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1622 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1623 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1624 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1625 L<perlsec> for more information.
1627 =item Insecure directory in %s
1629 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1630 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1631 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1633 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1635 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1636 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1637 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1638 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1639 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1641 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1643 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1644 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was
1645 first used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and
1646 ambiguous instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a
1647 backslash to indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array
1648 within the program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will
1649 simply assume that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1651 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1653 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1654 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1655 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1656 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1657 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1658 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1659 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1660 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1663 =item internal disaster in regexp
1665 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1667 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1669 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1670 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1671 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1672 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1673 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1674 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1676 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1678 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1680 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1682 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1683 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1684 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms
1685 and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1687 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1689 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1690 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1692 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1694 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1695 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1697 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1699 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1700 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1702 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1704 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1705 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1707 =item invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1709 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1710 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1712 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1714 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1715 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1716 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1719 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1721 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1722 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1725 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1727 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1729 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1732 =item ioctl is not implemented
1734 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1735 strange for a machine that supports C.
1737 =item junk on end of regexp
1739 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1741 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1743 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1744 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1747 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1749 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1750 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1753 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1755 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1756 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1759 =item leaving effective %s failed
1761 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1762 effective uids or gids failed.
1764 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1766 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1767 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1770 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1772 (W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1773 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1774 instead on the filehandle.)
1776 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1778 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1779 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1780 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1782 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1784 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1792 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1793 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1794 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1795 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1797 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1799 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1800 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1802 =item %s matches null string many times
1804 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1805 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See
1808 =item % may only be used in unpack
1810 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
1811 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1812 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1814 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1816 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1817 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1819 =item Method %s not permitted
1823 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1825 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1826 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1827 ended earlier on the current line.
1829 =item Misplaced _ in number
1831 (W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1833 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1835 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1836 double-quotish context.
1838 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1840 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1841 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1843 =item Missing command in piped open
1845 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1846 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1849 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1851 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1852 they have a name with which they can be found.
1854 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1856 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1857 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1858 can vary from one line to the next.
1860 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
1862 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1863 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1865 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1867 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1868 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1871 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1873 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1874 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1875 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1877 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1879 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1880 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1881 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1883 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1886 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1888 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
1890 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1891 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1894 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
1896 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1897 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
1899 =item Module name must be constant
1901 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1903 =item Module name required with -%c option
1905 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1906 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1907 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
1909 =item msg%s not implemented
1911 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1913 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1915 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
1916 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1918 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
1920 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
1921 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
1922 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1924 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1926 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
1927 must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
1928 of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1930 =item / must follow a numeric type
1932 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
1933 follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1935 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
1937 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
1940 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
1942 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
1943 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
1944 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
1946 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1948 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1949 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1950 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1951 provided for this purpose.
1953 =item Negative length
1955 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
1956 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1958 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1960 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1961 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1963 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
1964 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1966 =item %s never introduced
1968 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
1969 scope before it could possibly have been used.
1971 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1973 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
1974 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
1975 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
1976 securable. See L<perlsec>.
1978 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1980 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1982 =item No comma allowed after %s
1984 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1985 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1986 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1988 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1989 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1990 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1991 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1992 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1993 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1994 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1995 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1996 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1997 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1998 this error was triggered?
2000 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2002 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2003 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2004 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2006 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2008 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2009 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2010 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2011 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2012 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2014 =item No dbm on this machine
2016 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2017 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2019 =item No DBsub routine
2021 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2022 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2023 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2024 ordinary subroutine call.
2026 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2028 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2029 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2030 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2032 =item No input file after < on command line
2034 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2035 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2036 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2040 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2041 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2043 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2045 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2046 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2048 =item No output file after > on command line
2050 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2051 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2052 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2054 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2056 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2057 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2058 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2060 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2062 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2063 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2064 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2066 =item No Perl script found in input
2068 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2069 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2071 =item No setregid available
2073 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2076 =item No setreuid available
2078 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2081 =item No space allowed after -%c
2083 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2084 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2086 =item No %s specified for -%c
2088 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2089 you haven't specified one.
2091 =item No such pipe open
2093 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2094 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2095 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2097 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2099 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2100 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2101 array indices for that to work.
2103 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2105 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2106 not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2107 %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2108 %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2110 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2112 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2113 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2114 names on your system.
2116 =item Not a CODE reference
2118 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2119 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2120 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2123 =item Not a format reference
2125 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2126 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2128 =item Not a GLOB reference
2130 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2131 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2132 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2133 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2135 =item Not a HASH reference
2137 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2138 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2139 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2141 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2143 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2144 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2145 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2147 =item Not a perl script
2149 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2150 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2153 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2155 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2156 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2157 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2159 =item Not a subroutine reference
2161 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2162 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2163 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2166 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2168 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2169 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2171 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2173 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2175 =item Not enough format arguments
2177 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2178 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2182 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2183 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2186 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2188 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2189 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2190 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2191 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2192 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2194 =item Null filename used
2196 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2197 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2199 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2201 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2204 =item Null picture in formline
2206 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2207 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2208 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2212 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2214 =item NULL regexp argument
2216 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2218 =item NULL regexp parameter
2220 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2222 =item Number too long
2224 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2225 about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2226 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2227 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2230 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2232 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2233 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2236 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2238 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2239 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2240 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2242 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2244 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2246 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2247 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2249 =item Offset outside string
2251 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2252 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2253 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2254 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2256 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2258 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2259 that isn't open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2263 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2267 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2269 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2271 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2272 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2273 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2274 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2276 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2278 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2279 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2280 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2281 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2284 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2286 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2287 in the current lexical scope.
2289 =item Out of memory!
2291 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2292 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2293 no option but to exit immediately.
2295 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2297 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2298 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2299 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2300 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2302 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2304 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2305 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2308 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2309 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2310 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2311 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2312 is trappable I<once>.
2314 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2316 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2317 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2318 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2320 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2322 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2323 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2326 =item @ outside of string
2328 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2329 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2331 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2333 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2334 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2335 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2336 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2340 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2341 page. See L<perlform>.
2345 (P) An internal error.
2347 =item panic: ck_grep
2349 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2351 =item panic: ck_split
2353 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2355 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2357 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2358 there are in the savestack.
2360 =item panic: del_backref
2362 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2367 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2368 it wasn't an eval context.
2370 =item panic: do_match
2372 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2375 =item panic: do_split
2377 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2379 =item panic: do_subst
2381 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2384 =item panic: do_trans
2386 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational
2391 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2395 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2396 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2398 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2400 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2402 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2404 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2406 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2408 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2412 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2413 it wasn't a block context.
2415 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2417 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2420 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2422 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2423 invalid enum on the top of it.
2425 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2427 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2428 references to an object.
2432 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2434 =item panic: mapstart
2436 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2438 =item panic: null array
2440 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2442 =item panic: pad_alloc
2444 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2445 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2447 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2449 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2450 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2452 =item panic: pad_free po
2454 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2456 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2458 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2459 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2461 =item panic: pad_sv po
2463 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2465 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2467 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2468 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2470 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2472 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2474 =item panic: pp_iter
2476 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2478 =item panic: realloc
2480 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2482 =item panic: restartop
2484 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2485 didn't supply the destination.
2489 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2490 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2492 =item panic: scan_num
2494 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2496 =item panic: sv_insert
2498 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2501 =item panic: top_env
2503 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2507 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2509 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2511 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2512 to even) byte length.
2514 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2516 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2522 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2524 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2526 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2528 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2529 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2530 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2532 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2534 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2535 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2537 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2539 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2541 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2542 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2545 are supported and installed on your system.
2546 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2548 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2549 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2550 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
2551 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
2552 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
2553 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the script
2554 will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you will get
2555 the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really fix the
2556 problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2558 =item Permission denied
2560 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2562 =item pid %x not a child
2564 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2565 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2566 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2568 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2570 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2571 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2573 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2575 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2576 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2577 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2578 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2580 You probably wrote something like this:
2587 when you should have written this:
2594 If you really want comments, build your list the
2595 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2599 'b', # another comment
2602 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2604 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2605 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2606 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2609 You probably wrote something like this:
2613 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2614 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2618 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2620 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2621 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2622 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2623 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2625 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2627 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2628 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2630 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2632 (W deprecated) You have written something like this:
2636 use attrs qw(locked);
2639 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2645 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2646 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2648 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2650 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2654 is now misinterpreted as
2658 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2659 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2660 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2663 =item Premature end of script headers
2667 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2669 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2670 before now. Check your logic flow.
2672 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2674 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2675 before now. Check your logic flow.
2677 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2679 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2680 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2681 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2682 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
2685 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2687 (S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2688 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
2690 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2692 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2693 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2694 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2695 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2697 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2699 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2700 before now. Check your logic flow.
2702 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2704 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2706 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2708 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2711 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2713 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2714 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2715 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2717 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2719 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2720 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2722 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
2724 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2725 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2728 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2730 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2731 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2732 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2733 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2735 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2736 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2737 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2738 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2740 =item Reference is already weak
2742 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2743 Doing so has no effect.
2745 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2747 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2748 a reference count of other than 1.
2750 =item regexp memory corruption
2752 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2753 expression compiler gave it.
2755 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2757 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier could
2758 match an empty string.
2760 =item regexp out of space
2762 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2765 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
2767 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2768 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2770 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2772 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2773 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2775 =item Reversed %s= operator
2777 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2778 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2780 =item Runaway format
2782 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2783 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2784 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2785 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2786 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2788 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2790 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2791 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2792 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2793 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2794 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2795 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2796 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2798 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2799 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2800 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2803 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2805 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
2806 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
2807 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
2808 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2809 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2810 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2811 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2813 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
2814 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
2815 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2818 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2820 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2821 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2823 =item Search pattern not terminated
2825 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2826 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2827 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2829 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
2831 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
2832 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2834 =item select not implemented
2836 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2838 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2840 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
2841 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2843 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2845 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
2846 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
2848 =item sem%s not implemented
2850 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2852 =item send() on closed socket %s
2854 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
2855 before now. Check your logic flow.
2857 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2859 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. See
2862 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2864 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2865 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2867 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2869 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2872 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2874 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2875 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2877 =item 500 Server error
2883 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
2884 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
2885 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
2886 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
2887 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
2888 produce a valid header".
2890 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2892 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
2893 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
2894 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
2895 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
2896 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
2897 Please see the following for more information:
2899 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2900 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2901 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2902 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2903 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2905 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2907 =item setegid() not implemented
2909 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
2910 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2913 =item seteuid() not implemented
2915 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
2916 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2919 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
2921 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
2922 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
2925 =item setrgid() not implemented
2927 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
2928 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2931 =item setruid() not implemented
2933 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
2934 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2937 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
2939 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2940 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2941 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
2943 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2945 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
2946 world, because the world might have written on it already.
2948 =item shm%s not implemented
2950 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2952 =item <> should be quotes
2954 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
2957 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
2959 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
2960 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
2961 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
2962 probably not what you had in mind.
2964 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
2966 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
2969 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2971 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
2972 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
2974 =item sort is now a reserved word
2976 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2977 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2979 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2981 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2982 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2983 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2985 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2987 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2988 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2992 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
2993 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
2994 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
2996 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2998 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
2999 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3000 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3001 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3004 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3006 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3007 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3009 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
3011 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3012 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3013 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3014 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3015 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3017 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3019 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3020 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3021 C<can> may break this.
3023 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3025 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3029 eval "sub name { ... }";
3032 =item Substitution loop
3034 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3035 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3036 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3037 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3039 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3041 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3042 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3043 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3045 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3047 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3048 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3049 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3051 =item substr outside of string
3053 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3054 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3055 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3056 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3057 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3059 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3061 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3062 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3064 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3066 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3067 and effective uids or gids.
3071 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3073 A keyword is misspelled.
3074 A semicolon is missing.
3076 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3077 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3078 A closing quote is missing.
3080 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3081 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3082 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3083 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3084 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3085 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3086 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3087 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3088 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3091 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3093 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3094 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3099 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3101 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3103 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3104 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3105 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3106 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3108 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3110 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3111 before now. Check your logic flow.
3113 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3115 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3116 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3118 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3120 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3121 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3123 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3125 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3126 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3135 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3136 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3138 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3140 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3141 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3142 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3143 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3146 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3148 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3149 to the probings of Configure.
3151 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
3153 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3154 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3155 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3158 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3160 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3162 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3163 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3164 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3165 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3166 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3167 target of the change to
3168 %ENV which produced the warning.
3170 =item times not implemented
3172 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3173 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3175 =item Too few args to syscall
3177 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3178 system call to call, silly dilly.
3180 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3182 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3183 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3184 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3185 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3188 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3189 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3190 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3191 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3193 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3194 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3196 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3198 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3199 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3200 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3202 =item Too late to run %s block
3204 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3205 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3206 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3207 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3210 =item Too many args to syscall
3212 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3214 =item Too many arguments for %s
3216 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3220 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3221 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3225 =item trailing \ in regexp
3227 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3228 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3230 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3232 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3233 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3234 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3236 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3238 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3241 =item truncate not implemented
3243 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3244 Configure knows about.
3246 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3248 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3249 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3250 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3251 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3253 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3255 (W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3256 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3258 =item umask not implemented
3260 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3261 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3263 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3265 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3267 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3269 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3270 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3272 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3274 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3275 many values were temporarily localized.
3277 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3279 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3280 many blocks were entered and left.
3282 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3284 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3285 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3287 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3289 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3290 another package? See L<perlform>.
3292 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3294 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3295 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3297 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3299 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3300 since been undefined.
3302 =item Undefined subroutine called
3304 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3305 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3307 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3309 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3310 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3312 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3314 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3315 another package? See L<perlform>.
3317 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3319 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3320 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3323 =item %s: Undefined variable
3325 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3326 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3328 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3330 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3331 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3333 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3335 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3338 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3340 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3341 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3342 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3344 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3346 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3347 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3348 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3349 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3351 =item unmatched [] in regexp
3353 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3354 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3355 first. See L<perlre>.
3357 =item unmatched () in regexp
3359 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3360 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3361 matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3363 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3365 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3366 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3367 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3368 you were last editing.
3370 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3372 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3373 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3374 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3377 =item Unrecognized character %s
3379 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3380 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3381 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3383 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3385 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3386 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3387 understood literally.
3389 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3391 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3392 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated
3393 variable or a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was
3394 understood literally.
3396 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3398 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3401 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3403 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3404 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3407 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3409 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3410 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3411 bad switch on your behalf.)
3413 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3415 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3416 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3417 PROBABLY because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See
3420 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3422 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3424 =item Unsupported function %s
3426 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3427 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3429 =item Unsupported function fork
3431 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3433 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3434 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3435 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3437 =item Unsupported script encoding
3439 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3440 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3442 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3444 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3445 least that's what Configure thought.
3447 =item Unterminated attribute list
3449 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3450 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3451 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3452 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3454 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3456 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3457 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3458 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3459 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3461 =item Unterminated compressed integer
3463 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3464 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3465 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3467 =item Unterminated <> operator
3469 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3470 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3471 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3472 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3474 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3476 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3477 still valid when C<untie> was called.
3479 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3481 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3482 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3483 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3484 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3485 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3486 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3491 when you meant to say
3493 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3495 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3496 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3501 when you should have said
3505 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3506 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3507 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3508 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3509 L<perlref> for more on this.
3511 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3513 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3515 =item "use" not allowed in expression
3517 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3518 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3520 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3522 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
3523 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3525 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3527 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
3528 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
3529 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3531 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3533 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
3534 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
3535 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
3536 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
3539 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
3540 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
3541 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
3542 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
3545 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3546 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
3547 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
3548 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
3551 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
3552 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3553 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3555 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3557 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3558 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3560 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3562 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
3563 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
3564 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
3565 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3567 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3569 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
3570 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
3571 old way has bad side effects.
3573 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3575 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
3576 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3578 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3580 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
3581 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
3582 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
3583 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
3584 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
3585 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3587 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3589 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
3590 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
3591 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3593 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
3594 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
3595 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
3596 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
3597 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
3598 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
3601 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3603 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
3604 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
3605 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
3606 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
3607 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
3608 C<defined> operator.
3610 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3612 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
3613 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
3614 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
3617 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3619 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
3620 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3621 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
3622 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
3623 front of your variable.
3625 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
3627 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
3628 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
3629 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
3630 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
3631 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
3633 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3635 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
3636 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
3637 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
3638 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
3640 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3642 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3643 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
3644 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3645 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
3646 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
3647 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
3649 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
3650 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
3651 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
3652 between interferes with this feature.
3654 =item Variable syntax
3656 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3657 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3660 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3662 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
3663 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3665 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3666 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
3667 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
3668 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
3669 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
3670 variable will no longer be shared.
3672 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3673 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3674 will I<never> share the given variable.
3676 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3677 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3678 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
3679 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
3681 =item Version number must be a constant number
3683 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3684 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3687 =item Warning: something's wrong
3689 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3690 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3692 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3694 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
3695 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
3698 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3700 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
3701 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
3702 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
3703 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3707 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3711 but in actual fact, you got
3715 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3717 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
3719 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3720 before now. Check your logic flow.
3722 =item X outside of string
3724 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3725 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3727 =item x outside of string
3729 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3730 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3732 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3734 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3737 =item Xsub called in sort
3739 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3742 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3744 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
3745 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3746 Use a filename instead.
3748 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3750 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3751 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3752 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in the
3753 eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3755 =item You need to quote "%s"
3757 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
3758 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
3759 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
3760 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
3761 what you want, put an & in front.)