3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
22 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
23 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
24 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
27 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
28 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
29 Since the messages are listed in alphabetical order, the symbols
30 C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
34 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
36 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try that
39 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
41 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
42 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
43 if you want to localize a package variable.
45 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
47 (W) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
48 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
49 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
50 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
53 =item "no" not allowed in expression
55 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
56 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
58 =item "use" not allowed in expression
60 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
61 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
63 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
65 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
68 =item / cannot take a count
70 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
71 but you have also specified an explicit size for the string.
74 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
76 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
77 which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z
78 to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked.
81 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
83 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
84 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*.
87 =item / must follow a numeric type
89 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#',
90 but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.
93 =item % may only be used in unpack
95 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
96 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
97 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
99 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
101 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
102 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
104 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
106 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
107 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
109 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
111 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
112 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
113 C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood literally.
115 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
117 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
118 by Perl inside character classes. The character was understood literally.
120 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
122 (W) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
123 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true
124 or false result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string,
125 which is probably not what you had in mind.
127 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
129 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
130 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
131 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
133 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
135 (W) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a
136 definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call
137 conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype
138 declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine
139 definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively,
140 if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put
141 an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L<perlsub>.
143 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
145 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
148 $ref->[12]->["susie"]
150 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
152 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element, such as:
155 $ref->[12]->["susie"]
157 or a hash or array slice, such as:
159 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
160 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
162 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
164 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
165 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
167 =item %s did not return a true value
169 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
170 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
171 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
172 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
174 =item %s found where operator expected
176 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
177 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
178 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
179 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
181 =item %s had compilation errors
183 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
185 =item %s has too many errors
187 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
188 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
190 =item %s matches null string many times
192 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
193 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
195 =item %s never introduced
197 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
198 before it could possibly have been used.
200 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
202 (W) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a package-specific handler.
203 That name might have a meaning to Perl itself some day, even though it
204 doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a mixed-case attribute name, instead.
209 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
211 =item %s: Command not found
213 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
214 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
217 =item %s: Expression syntax
219 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
220 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
223 =item %s: Undefined variable
225 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
226 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
231 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
232 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
235 =item (in cleanup) %s
237 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
238 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
239 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
240 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
241 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
244 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
245 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
247 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
249 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
250 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
251 the previous line just because you saw this message.
253 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
255 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
256 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
258 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
260 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
261 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
263 =item C<-p> destination: %s
265 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
266 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
267 redirected it with select().)
269 =item 500 Server error
273 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
275 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
276 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
278 =item @ outside of string
280 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
281 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
283 =item <> should be quotes
285 (F) You wrote C<require E<lt>fileE<gt>> when you should have written
288 =item accept() on closed socket %s
290 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
291 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
293 =item Allocation too large: %lx
295 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
297 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
299 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
300 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
301 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
302 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
303 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
304 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
306 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
308 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
310 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
312 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
313 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
314 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
316 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
318 (W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
319 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
320 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
323 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
324 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
325 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
326 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
328 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
329 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
330 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">
333 =item Args must match #! line
335 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
336 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
337 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
338 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
340 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
342 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
343 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
344 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
346 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
348 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
349 is now heavily deprecated.
351 =item assertion botched: %s
353 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
355 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
357 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
359 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
361 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
362 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
363 know which context to supply to the right side.
365 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
367 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
368 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
371 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
373 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
374 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
375 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
376 that can no longer be found in the table.
378 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
380 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
381 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
382 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
383 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
386 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
388 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
390 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
392 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
393 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
394 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
395 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
396 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
397 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
399 =item Attempt to join self
401 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
402 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
403 need to move the join() to some other thread.
405 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
407 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
408 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
409 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
410 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
411 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
414 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
416 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
417 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
418 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
420 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
422 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
423 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
424 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
425 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
427 =item Bad filehandle: %s
429 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
430 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
431 did it in another package.
433 =item Bad free() ignored
435 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
436 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
437 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
439 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
440 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
441 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
446 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
448 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
450 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
451 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
454 =item Bad name after %s::
456 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
457 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
466 $sym = "mypack::$var";
468 =item Bad realloc() ignored
470 (S) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had never been
471 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
472 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
474 =item Bad symbol for array
476 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
477 wasn't a symbol table entry.
479 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
481 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
482 wasn't a symbol table entry.
484 =item Bad symbol for hash
486 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
487 wasn't a symbol table entry.
489 =item Badly placed ()'s
491 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
492 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
495 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
497 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
498 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
499 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
501 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
503 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
504 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
505 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
507 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
509 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
510 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
512 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
514 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
515 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
516 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
517 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
518 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
520 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
522 (W) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
523 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
524 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
526 =item bind() on closed socket %s
528 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
529 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
531 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
533 (W) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
535 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
537 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
539 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
541 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
542 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
543 so it was truncated to the string shown.
545 =item Callback called exit
547 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
548 exited by calling exit.
550 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
552 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
553 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
554 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
555 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
557 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
559 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
560 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
562 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
564 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
565 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
566 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
567 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep().
568 You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect though,
569 because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once.
570 See L<perlfunc/last>.
572 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
574 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
575 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
576 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
577 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
578 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
579 loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
581 =item Can't read CRTL environ
583 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
584 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
585 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
586 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
588 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
590 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
591 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
592 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
593 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
594 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
595 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
597 =item Can't bless non-reference value
599 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
600 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
602 =item Can't break at that line
604 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
605 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
608 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
610 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
611 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
612 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
614 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
616 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
617 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
618 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
619 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
621 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
623 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
624 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
625 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
626 Something like this will reproduce the error:
629 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
630 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
632 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
634 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
635 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
636 Something like this will reproduce the error:
639 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
640 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
642 =item Can't chdir to %s
644 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
645 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
647 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
649 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
651 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
653 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
654 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
664 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
666 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
668 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
669 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
671 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
673 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
674 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
676 =item Can't coerce array into hash
678 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
679 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
680 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
682 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
684 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
685 or other plumbing problems.
687 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
689 (S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
690 qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
691 for other types of variables in future.
693 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
695 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
696 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
698 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
700 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
702 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
704 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
705 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
708 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
710 (S) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
711 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
712 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
714 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
716 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
717 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
719 =item Can't do setegid!
721 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
724 =item Can't do seteuid!
726 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
728 =item Can't do setuid
730 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
731 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
732 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
733 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
734 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
735 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
737 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
739 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
740 without flags is emulated.
742 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
744 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
745 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
747 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
749 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
750 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
752 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
754 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
755 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
756 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
757 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
758 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
759 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
763 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
764 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
765 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
767 =item Can't execute %s
769 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
770 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
772 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
774 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
775 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
776 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
778 =item Can't find %s on PATH
780 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
783 =item Can't find label %s
785 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
786 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
788 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
790 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
791 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
792 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
794 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
796 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
797 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
798 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
802 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
804 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
806 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
807 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
808 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
809 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
810 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
811 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
812 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
813 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
814 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
815 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
816 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
817 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
818 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
819 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
821 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
823 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
824 can't retrieve its name for later use.
826 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
828 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
829 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
831 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
833 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
834 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
835 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
838 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
840 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
841 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
843 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
845 (W) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD signal
846 (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this signal
847 will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
848 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value.
849 This situation typically indicates that the parent program under
850 which Perl may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
852 =item Can't localize through a reference
854 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
855 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
856 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
857 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
859 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
861 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
862 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
863 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
866 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
868 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
869 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
870 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
871 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
873 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
875 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
876 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
877 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
878 doing C<make install>.
880 =item Can't locate %s
882 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
883 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
884 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
885 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra
886 library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or
887 maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>
890 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
892 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
893 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
894 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
896 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
898 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
901 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
903 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
905 =item Can't modify %s in %s
907 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
908 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
910 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
912 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
913 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
915 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
917 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
920 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
922 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
925 =item Can't open %s: %s
927 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
928 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
929 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
930 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
933 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
935 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
936 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
937 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
938 and then read it in under a different file handle.
940 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
942 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
943 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
944 command line for writing.
946 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
948 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
949 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
951 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
953 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
954 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
957 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
959 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
960 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
962 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
964 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
966 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
968 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
969 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
970 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
971 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
973 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
975 (S) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup file. Perl
976 was unable to remove the original file to replace it with the modified
977 file. The file was left unmodified.
979 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
981 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
982 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
984 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
986 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
987 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
989 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
991 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
994 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
996 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
997 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
999 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1001 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such
1002 as temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue.
1003 This is not allowed.
1005 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1007 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
1008 it open already. Bizarre.
1010 =item Can't swap uid and euid
1012 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
1015 =item Can't take log of %g
1017 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1018 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1019 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
1020 the negative numbers.
1022 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1024 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1025 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1026 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1028 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1030 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1031 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1032 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1036 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1037 as the main Perl stack.
1039 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
1041 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
1042 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
1043 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
1044 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1046 =item Can't upgrade to undef
1048 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
1049 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
1050 code calling sv_upgrade.
1052 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
1054 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1055 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1056 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1058 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1060 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1061 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
1062 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1063 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1066 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
1068 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
1069 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
1070 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
1072 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1074 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
1076 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1078 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1079 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1080 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1082 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1084 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
1085 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
1086 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
1087 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
1088 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
1090 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1092 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1093 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1095 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1097 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1098 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1100 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1102 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1103 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1105 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1107 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
1108 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
1109 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
1110 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1113 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1115 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1116 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1117 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1119 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1121 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1122 references can be weakened.
1124 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1126 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
1127 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1128 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1130 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
1132 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
1133 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
1135 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1137 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1138 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1139 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1141 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1143 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
1146 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1148 (W) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1149 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
1150 for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .]
1151 are not currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for
1154 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1156 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
1157 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
1158 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1159 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1160 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1162 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1164 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1165 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
1166 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1167 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1168 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1170 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
1172 (W) A novice will sometimes say
1174 chmod 777, $filename
1176 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1177 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1179 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1181 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1183 =item Compilation failed in require
1185 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1186 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1187 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1189 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1191 (W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1192 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1193 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1194 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1195 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1196 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1197 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1198 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1199 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1201 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1203 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1204 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1206 =item Constant is not %s reference
1208 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1209 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1210 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1211 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1212 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1214 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1216 (S|W) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1217 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1220 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1222 (W) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1223 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1226 =item constant(%s): %%^H is not localized
1228 (F) When setting compile-time-lexicalized hash %^H one should set the
1229 corresponding bit of $^H as well.
1231 =item constant(%s): %s
1233 (F) Compile-time-substitutions (such as overloaded constants and
1234 character names) were not correctly set up.
1236 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1238 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1240 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1242 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1244 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1246 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1247 expression compiler gave it.
1249 =item corrupted regexp program
1251 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1252 a valid magic number.
1254 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1256 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1257 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1258 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1259 case it indicates something else.
1261 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1263 (D) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
1264 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
1265 just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1267 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1269 (D) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
1270 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
1271 just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1273 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1275 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1276 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1277 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1279 =item Did not produce a valid header
1283 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1285 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1287 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1289 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1290 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1294 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1295 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1297 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1299 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1300 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1301 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1302 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1303 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1304 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1305 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1306 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1309 =item Document contains no data
1313 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1315 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1317 =item do_study: out of memory
1319 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1321 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1323 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1326 =item elseif should be elsif
1328 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1329 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1330 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1331 unlikely to be what you want.
1333 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1335 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a STOP, INIT, or
1336 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1337 routines has been prematurely ended.
1339 =item entering effective %s failed
1341 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1342 effective uids or gids failed.
1344 =item Error converting file specification %s
1346 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1347 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1348 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1349 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1350 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1352 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1354 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1355 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1356 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1358 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1360 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1361 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1362 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1364 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1366 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1367 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1368 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1369 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1370 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1371 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1373 =item Excessively long <> operator
1375 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1376 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1377 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1378 variable and glob that.
1380 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1382 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1384 =item Exiting eval via %s
1386 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1387 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1389 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1391 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1392 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1393 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1395 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1397 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1398 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1400 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1402 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1403 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1405 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1407 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1408 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1409 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1410 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1412 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1414 (W) A character class range must start and end at a literal character, not
1415 another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-" in your false
1416 range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the "-", "\-".
1419 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1421 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1422 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1423 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1424 the Perl source code is distressed.
1426 =item fcntl is not implemented
1428 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1429 PDP-11 or something?
1431 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1433 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1434 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1435 the FileHandle package.
1437 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1439 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1440 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1441 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1442 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1445 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1447 (W) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
1448 intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1449 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1450 you intended only to read from the file, use "E<lt>". See
1453 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1455 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1456 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1457 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1460 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1462 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1463 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1464 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1467 =item Format %s redefined
1469 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1473 eval "format NAME =...";
1476 =item Format not terminated
1478 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1479 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1481 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1491 (or something like that).
1493 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1495 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1497 =item gethostent not implemented
1499 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1500 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1503 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1505 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1506 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1508 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1510 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1511 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1513 =item Glob not terminated
1515 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1516 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1517 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1518 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1520 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1522 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1523 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1524 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1527 =item goto must have label
1529 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1530 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1532 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1534 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1535 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1536 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1538 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1540 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1541 is now heavily deprecated.
1543 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1545 (W) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1546 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1547 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1549 =item Identifier too long
1551 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1552 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1553 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1554 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1556 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1558 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1559 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1560 used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1562 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1564 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1565 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1566 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1569 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1571 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1572 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1573 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1575 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1576 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1577 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1578 properly converting the text file format.
1580 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1581 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1582 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1584 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1585 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1588 =item Illegal division by zero
1590 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1591 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1593 =item Illegal modulus zero
1595 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1596 don't take to this kindly.
1598 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1600 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1602 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1604 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1606 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1608 (W) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1609 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1611 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1613 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1614 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1616 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1618 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f
1619 in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1620 before the illegal character.
1622 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1624 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1625 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1627 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1629 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1630 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1632 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1634 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1635 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1636 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1637 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1638 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1639 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1640 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1642 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1644 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1645 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1646 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1647 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1648 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1649 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1650 for more information.
1652 =item Insecure directory in %s
1654 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1655 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1658 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1660 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1661 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1662 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1663 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1664 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1666 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1668 (W) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either
1669 as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for your
1670 architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a
1671 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1672 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1673 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1674 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1675 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1678 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1680 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1681 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1682 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1683 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1684 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1685 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1686 and execute the specified command.
1688 =item internal disaster in regexp
1690 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1692 =item glob failed (%s)
1694 (W) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1695 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1696 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1697 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1698 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1699 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1700 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1701 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1702 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1703 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1706 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1708 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1710 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1712 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1713 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1715 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1717 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not recognized
1718 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1720 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1722 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1723 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1725 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1727 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1728 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1730 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1732 (F) Something other than a comma or whitespace was seen between the
1733 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute
1734 had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated
1735 too soon. See L<attributes>.
1737 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1739 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1740 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1743 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1745 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1746 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1749 =item ioctl is not implemented
1751 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1752 strange for a machine that supports C.
1754 =item junk on end of regexp
1756 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1758 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1760 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1761 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1762 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1764 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1766 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1767 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1770 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1772 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1773 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1776 =item leaving effective %s failed
1778 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1779 effective uids or gids failed.
1781 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1783 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1784 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1786 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1788 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1789 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context.
1790 See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1792 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1794 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1795 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1797 =item Method %s not permitted
1801 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1803 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1804 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1805 ended earlier on the current line.
1807 =item Misplaced _ in number
1809 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1811 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1813 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1814 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1815 one line to the next.
1817 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1819 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1820 double-quotish context.
1822 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1824 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1825 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1827 =item Missing command in piped open
1829 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1830 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1832 =item Missing operator before %s?
1834 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1835 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1837 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1839 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than
1840 closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place
1841 you were last editing.
1843 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1845 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1846 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1847 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1849 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1852 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1854 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1856 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1857 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1860 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1862 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1863 be created for some peculiar reason.
1865 =item Module name must be constant
1867 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1869 =item msg%s not implemented
1871 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1873 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1875 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1876 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1878 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1880 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that they
1881 have a name with which they can be found.
1883 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1885 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1886 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1887 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1888 provided for this purpose.
1890 =item Negative length
1892 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1893 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1895 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1897 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1898 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1900 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1901 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1905 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1906 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1908 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1910 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1911 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1912 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1915 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1917 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1919 =item No %s specified for -%c
1921 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
1922 you haven't specified one.
1924 =item No comma allowed after %s
1926 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1927 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1928 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1930 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1931 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1932 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1933 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1934 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1935 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1936 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1937 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1938 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1939 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1940 this error was triggered?
1942 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1944 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1945 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1946 want to pipe the output from this command.
1948 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1950 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1951 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1952 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1953 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1954 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1957 =item No dbm on this machine
1959 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1960 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1962 =item No DBsub routine
1964 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1965 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1966 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1967 ordinary subroutine call.
1969 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1971 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1972 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1973 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1975 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1977 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1978 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1979 from which to read data for stdin.
1981 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1983 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1984 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1985 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1987 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1989 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1990 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1991 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1993 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
1995 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our" declarations,
1996 because that doesn't make much sense under existing semantics. Such
1997 syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1999 =item No Perl script found in input
2001 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2002 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2004 =item No setregid available
2006 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2009 =item No setreuid available
2011 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2014 =item No space allowed after -%c
2016 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow immediately
2017 after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2019 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2021 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2022 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2023 array indices for that to work.
2025 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2027 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
2028 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
2029 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
2030 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2032 =item No such pipe open
2034 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2035 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
2036 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2038 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2040 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
2041 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2043 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2045 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2046 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2047 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
2048 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
2051 =item Not a CODE reference
2053 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2054 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2055 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2056 See also L<perlref>.
2058 =item Not a format reference
2060 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2061 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2063 =item Not a GLOB reference
2065 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
2066 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2067 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
2068 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2070 =item Not a HASH reference
2072 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
2073 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2074 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2076 =item Not a perl script
2078 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2079 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2082 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2084 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
2085 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2086 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2088 =item Not a subroutine reference
2090 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2091 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2092 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2093 See also L<perlref>.
2095 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2097 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2098 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2100 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2102 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
2103 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2104 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2106 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2108 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2110 =item Not enough format arguments
2112 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
2115 =item Null filename used
2117 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
2118 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2120 =item Null picture in formline
2122 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2123 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2124 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2126 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2128 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
2132 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2134 =item NULL regexp argument
2136 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2138 =item NULL regexp parameter
2140 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2142 =item Number too long
2144 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
2145 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
2146 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
2147 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
2149 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2151 (W) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295)
2152 and therefore non-portable between systems. See L<perlport> for more
2153 on portability concerns.
2155 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2157 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2159 (W) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
2160 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2162 =item Offset outside string
2164 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2165 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
2166 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
2167 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2171 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2175 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2177 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2179 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
2180 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
2181 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
2182 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
2183 true. See L<overload>.
2185 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2187 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
2188 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
2189 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
2190 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
2191 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
2193 =item Out of memory!
2195 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2196 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl
2197 has no option but to exit immediately.
2199 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2201 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
2202 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
2204 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2206 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2207 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
2209 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2210 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2211 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
2212 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
2213 error is trappable I<once>.
2215 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2217 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2218 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2219 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
2220 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2222 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2224 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2225 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
2226 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2230 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
2233 =item panic: ck_grep
2235 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2237 =item panic: ck_split
2239 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2241 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2243 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
2244 are in the savestack.
2246 =item panic: del_backref
2248 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2253 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2254 it wasn't an eval context.
2256 =item panic: do_match
2258 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2260 =item panic: do_split
2262 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2264 =item panic: do_subst
2266 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2268 =item panic: do_trans
2270 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2274 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2278 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2279 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2281 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2283 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2285 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2287 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2289 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2291 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2295 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2296 it wasn't a block context.
2298 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2300 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
2302 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2304 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2305 invalid enum on the top of it.
2309 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2311 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2313 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2314 references to an object.
2316 =item panic: mapstart
2318 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2320 =item panic: null array
2322 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2324 =item panic: pad_alloc
2326 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2327 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2329 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2331 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2332 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2334 =item panic: pad_free po
2336 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2338 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2340 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2341 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2343 =item panic: pad_sv po
2345 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2347 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2349 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2350 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2352 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2354 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2356 =item panic: pp_iter
2358 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2360 =item panic: realloc
2362 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2364 =item panic: restartop
2366 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2367 didn't supply the destination.
2371 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2372 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2374 =item panic: scan_num
2376 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2378 =item panic: sv_insert
2380 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2383 =item panic: top_env
2385 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2389 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2393 (P) An internal error.
2395 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2397 (W) You said something like
2403 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2405 Remember that "my", "our" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2407 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2409 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2410 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2411 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2413 =item Permission denied
2415 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2417 =item pid %x not a child
2419 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2420 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2421 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2423 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2425 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2426 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2428 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2430 (W) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2431 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2433 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2435 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2436 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2437 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2438 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2440 You probably wrote something like this:
2447 when you should have written this:
2454 If you really want comments, build your list the
2455 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2459 'b', # another comment
2462 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2464 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2465 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2466 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2469 You probably wrote something like this:
2473 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2474 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2478 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2480 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2481 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2482 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2483 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2485 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2487 (S) The old irregular construct
2491 is now misinterpreted as
2495 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2496 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2497 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2500 =item Premature end of script headers
2504 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2506 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2507 Check your logic flow.
2509 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2511 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2512 Check your logic flow.
2514 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2516 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2517 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2518 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2522 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2524 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2525 or defined with a different function prototype.
2527 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2529 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2530 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2531 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2532 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2534 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2536 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2537 Check your logic flow.
2539 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2541 (S) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had already
2544 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2546 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2548 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2550 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2551 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2552 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2554 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2556 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2557 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2559 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2561 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2562 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2564 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2566 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2567 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2568 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2569 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2571 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2572 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2573 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2574 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2576 =item Reference is already weak
2578 (W) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2579 Doing so has no effect.
2581 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2583 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2584 reference count of other than 1.
2586 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2588 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2589 could match an empty string.
2591 =item regexp memory corruption
2593 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2594 expression compiler gave it.
2596 =item regexp out of space
2598 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2600 =item Reversed %s= operator
2602 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2603 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2605 =item Runaway format
2607 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2608 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2609 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2610 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2611 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2613 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2615 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2616 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2617 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2618 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2619 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2620 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2622 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2623 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2624 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2627 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2629 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2630 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2631 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2632 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2633 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2634 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2636 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2637 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2638 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2641 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2643 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2644 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2646 =item Search pattern not terminated
2648 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2649 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2650 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2652 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2654 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2655 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2657 =item select not implemented
2659 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2661 =item sem%s not implemented
2663 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2665 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2667 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2668 that had previously been marked as free.
2670 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2672 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2673 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2675 =item send() on closed socket %s
2677 (W) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2678 Check your logic flow.
2680 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2682 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2685 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2687 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2688 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2690 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2692 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2693 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2695 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2697 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2702 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
2703 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error
2704 text varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen
2705 variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted",
2706 "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and
2707 "Did not produce a valid header".
2709 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2711 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2712 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2713 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2714 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2715 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2716 for more information:
2718 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2719 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2720 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2721 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2722 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2724 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2726 =item setegid() not implemented
2728 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2729 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2732 =item seteuid() not implemented
2734 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2735 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2738 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
2740 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no arguments,
2741 unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process group ID.
2743 =item setrgid() not implemented
2745 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2746 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2749 =item setruid() not implemented
2751 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2752 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2755 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2757 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2758 because the world might have written on it already.
2760 =item shm%s not implemented
2762 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2764 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
2766 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2768 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2770 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2771 put it into the wrong package?
2773 =item sort is now a reserved word
2775 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2776 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2778 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2780 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2781 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2782 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2784 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2786 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2787 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2791 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2792 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2793 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2795 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2797 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2798 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2800 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2802 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2803 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2804 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2805 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2808 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2810 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2811 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2812 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2813 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2814 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2816 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2818 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2819 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2822 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2824 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2828 eval "sub name { ... }";
2831 =item Substitution loop
2833 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2834 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2835 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2836 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2838 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2840 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2841 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2842 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2844 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2846 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2847 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2848 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2850 =item substr outside of string
2852 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2853 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2854 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2855 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2856 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2858 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2860 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2861 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2863 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2865 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2866 real and effective uids or gids.
2870 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2872 A keyword is misspelled.
2873 A semicolon is missing.
2875 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2876 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2877 A closing quote is missing.
2879 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2880 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2881 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2882 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2883 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2884 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2885 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2886 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2887 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2889 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2891 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2892 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2895 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2897 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2898 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2899 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2900 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2902 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
2904 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2905 Check your logic flow.
2907 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2909 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2910 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2912 =item tell() on unopened file
2914 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2915 never opened or has since been closed.
2917 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2919 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2920 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2922 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2924 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2925 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2934 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2935 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2937 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2939 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2940 to the probings of Configure.
2942 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2944 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2945 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2946 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2947 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2950 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2952 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2953 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2954 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2956 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
2958 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2960 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2961 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2962 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2963 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2964 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
2965 %ENV which produced the warning.
2967 =item times not implemented
2969 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2970 you're not running on Unix.
2972 =item Too few args to syscall
2974 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2975 system call to call, silly dilly.
2977 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2979 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2980 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2981 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2982 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2985 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2986 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2987 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2988 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2990 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2991 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2993 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2995 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2996 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2997 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3003 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3004 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3007 =item Too many args to syscall
3009 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3011 =item Too many arguments for %s
3013 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3015 =item trailing \ in regexp
3017 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
3020 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3022 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3023 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3024 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3026 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3028 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3031 =item truncate not implemented
3033 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3034 Configure knows about.
3036 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3038 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3039 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3040 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3041 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3043 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3045 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3046 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3048 =item umask not implemented
3050 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
3051 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3053 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3055 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3057 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3059 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
3060 contexts were entered and left.
3062 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3064 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
3065 values were temporarily localized.
3067 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3069 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
3070 were entered and left.
3072 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3074 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
3075 scalars were allocated and freed.
3077 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3079 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3080 another package? See L<perlform>.
3082 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3084 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
3085 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3087 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3089 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
3090 has since been undefined.
3092 =item Undefined subroutine called
3094 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3095 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3097 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3099 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
3100 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3102 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3104 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3105 another package? See L<perlform>.
3107 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3109 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
3110 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
3112 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3114 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3115 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3117 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3119 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
3121 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3123 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3124 of valid modes: C<L<lt>>, C<L<gt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<+L<lt>>,
3125 C<+L<gt>>, C<+E<gt>E<gt>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3127 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3129 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3130 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3131 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3132 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3134 =item unmatched () in regexp
3136 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3137 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
3138 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3140 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3142 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than
3143 opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket.
3144 As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the
3145 place you were last editing.
3147 =item unmatched [] in regexp
3149 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3150 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
3153 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3155 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
3156 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
3157 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
3159 =item Unrecognized character %s
3161 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3162 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3163 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3165 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3167 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
3170 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3172 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
3173 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
3175 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3177 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
3178 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
3179 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
3181 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3183 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
3184 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
3185 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3187 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3189 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3191 =item Unsupported function fork
3193 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3195 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
3196 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
3197 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3199 =item Unsupported function %s
3201 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3202 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3204 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3206 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3207 least that's what Configure thought.
3209 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
3211 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3212 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
3213 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
3214 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3216 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3218 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing an
3219 attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3220 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3221 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3223 =item Unterminated attribute list
3225 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start
3226 of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3227 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute
3228 too soon. See L<attributes>.
3230 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3232 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
3233 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3235 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3237 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
3238 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
3239 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
3240 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3242 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3244 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3245 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3247 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
3249 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
3250 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3252 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3254 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
3255 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
3256 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3258 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3260 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
3261 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
3262 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
3263 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
3265 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
3266 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
3267 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
3268 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
3269 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
3271 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3272 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
3273 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
3274 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
3276 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
3277 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3278 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3280 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3282 (D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
3283 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
3284 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
3285 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
3286 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
3287 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3289 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3291 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
3292 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
3295 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3297 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
3298 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
3299 warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3301 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3303 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3305 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3307 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
3308 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
3309 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
3310 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
3311 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
3312 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
3316 when you meant to say
3318 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3320 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3321 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3326 when you should have said
3330 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3331 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3332 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3333 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3334 L<perlref> for more on this.
3336 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3338 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
3339 valid when C<untie> was called.
3341 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3343 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
3344 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
3345 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
3346 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
3347 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
3349 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3351 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3352 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3353 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3356 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3358 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
3359 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3360 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
3361 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
3362 on the front of your variable.
3364 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3366 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
3367 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
3368 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
3369 the outermost subroutine. For example:
3371 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3373 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3374 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
3375 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3376 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
3377 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
3378 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
3381 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
3382 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
3383 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
3384 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
3386 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3388 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
3389 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3391 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3392 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3393 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3394 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3395 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3396 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3398 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3399 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3400 will I<never> share the given variable.
3402 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3403 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3404 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3405 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3408 =item Variable syntax
3410 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3411 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3414 =item Version number must be a constant number
3416 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3417 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3420 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3422 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3424 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3425 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3428 are supported and installed on your system.
3429 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3431 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3432 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3433 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3434 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3435 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3436 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3437 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3438 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3439 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3441 =item Warning: something's wrong
3443 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3444 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3446 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3448 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3449 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3451 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3453 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3454 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3455 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3456 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3460 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3464 but in actual fact, you got
3468 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3470 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
3472 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3473 Check your logic flow.
3475 =item X outside of string
3477 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3478 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3480 =item x outside of string
3482 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3483 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3485 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3487 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3489 =item Xsub called in sort
3491 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3493 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3495 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3496 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3497 Use a filename instead.
3499 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3501 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3502 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3503 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3504 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3506 =item You need to quote "%s"
3508 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3509 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3510 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3511 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3513 =item %cetsockopt() on closed socket %s
3515 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3516 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3517 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt> and L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3519 =item \1 better written as $1
3521 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3522 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3523 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3524 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3525 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3527 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3529 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3530 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3531 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3533 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3535 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3536 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3537 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3538 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3541 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3548 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3550 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3551 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3553 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3555 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3563 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3564 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3565 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3566 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3568 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3570 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3571 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3573 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3575 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3576 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3577 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3578 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3583 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
3585 (W) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed some
3586 time before now. Check your logic flow. flock() operates on filehandles.
3587 Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the same name?