3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and
116 transliteration (tr///) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
141 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
143 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
149 or a hash or array slice, such as:
151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
154 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
156 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
157 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
162 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
166 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
168 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
169 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
171 =item assertion botched: %s
173 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
175 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
177 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
179 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
181 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
182 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
183 know which context to supply to the right side.
185 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
187 (F) When vec is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
188 greater than or equal to zero.
190 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
192 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
193 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
194 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
200 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
202 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
203 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
206 bless $self, "$proto";
208 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
210 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
211 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
212 outside any of those arenas.
214 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
216 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
217 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
218 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
219 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
221 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
223 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
224 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
225 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
226 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
229 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
231 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
233 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
235 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
236 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
237 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
238 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
239 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
240 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
243 =item Attempt to join self
245 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
246 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
247 to move the join() to some other thread.
249 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
251 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
252 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
253 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
254 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
255 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
258 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
260 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
261 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
262 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
264 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
266 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
267 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
268 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
269 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
271 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
273 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
274 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
275 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
277 =item Bad filehandle: %s
279 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
280 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
281 open(), or did it in another package.
283 =item Bad free() ignored
285 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
286 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
287 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
289 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
290 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
291 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
295 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
297 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
299 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
300 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
303 =item Badly placed ()'s
305 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
306 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
309 =item Bad name after %s::
311 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
312 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
321 $sym = "mypack::$var";
323 =item Bad realloc() ignored
325 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
326 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
327 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
329 =item Bad symbol for array
331 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
332 wasn't a symbol table entry.
334 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
336 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
337 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
339 =item Bad symbol for hash
341 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
342 wasn't a symbol table entry.
344 =item Bareword found in conditional
346 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
347 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
348 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
352 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
355 use constant TYPO => 1;
356 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
358 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
360 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
362 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
363 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
364 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
366 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
368 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
369 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
370 you need to predeclare a package?
372 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
374 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
375 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
378 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
380 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
381 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
382 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
383 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
384 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
386 =item \1 better written as $1
388 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
389 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
390 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
391 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
392 there are more than 9 backreferences.
394 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
396 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
397 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
398 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
400 =item bind() on closed socket %s
402 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
403 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
405 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
407 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
408 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
410 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
412 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
414 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
416 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
419 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
421 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
422 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
424 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
426 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
427 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
428 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
430 =item Callback called exit
432 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
433 exited by calling exit.
435 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
437 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
438 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
439 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
440 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
441 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
442 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
443 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
444 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
446 =item / cannot take a count
448 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
449 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
452 =item Can't bless non-reference value
454 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
455 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
457 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
459 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
460 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
461 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
463 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
465 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
466 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
467 like this will reproduce the error:
470 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
471 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
473 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
475 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
476 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
477 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
478 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
480 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
482 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
483 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
484 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
485 Something like this will reproduce the error:
488 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
489 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
491 =item Can't chdir to %s
493 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
494 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
496 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
498 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
501 =item Can't coerce array into hash
503 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
504 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
505 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
507 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
509 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
510 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
520 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
522 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
524 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
525 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
527 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
529 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
530 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
532 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
534 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
535 quotas or other plumbing problems.
537 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
539 (S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
540 qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
541 for other types of variables in future.
543 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
545 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
546 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
548 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
550 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
551 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
553 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
555 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
558 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
560 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
561 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
562 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
564 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
566 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
567 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
568 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
570 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
572 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
573 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
574 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
576 =item Can't do setegid!
578 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
581 =item Can't do seteuid!
583 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
585 =item Can't do setuid
587 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
588 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
589 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
590 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
591 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
592 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
594 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
596 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
597 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
599 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
601 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
602 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
605 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
607 (W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
608 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
609 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
610 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
611 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
612 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
617 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
618 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
619 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
621 =item Can't execute %s
623 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
624 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
626 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
628 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
629 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
631 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
633 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
634 could not be find. Maybe you mispelled the name of the property
635 (remember that the names of character properties consist only of
636 alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
638 =item Can't find label %s
640 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
641 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
643 =item Can't find %s on PATH
645 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
648 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
650 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
651 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
652 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
654 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
656 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
657 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
658 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
660 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
662 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
663 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
664 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
666 =item Can't find %s property definition %s
668 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property for
669 example \p{Lu} is all uppercase letters. Escape the C<\p>, either
670 C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
675 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
678 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
680 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
681 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
682 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
683 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
684 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
685 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
686 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
687 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
688 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
689 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
690 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
691 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
692 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
693 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
694 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
696 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
698 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
699 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
701 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
703 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
704 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
706 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
708 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
709 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
711 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
713 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
714 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
715 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
716 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
718 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
720 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
721 "string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
722 probably don't want to.)
724 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
726 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
727 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
728 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
729 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
731 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
733 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
734 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
735 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
736 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
737 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
738 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
740 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
742 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
743 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
744 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
745 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
746 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
747 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
750 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
752 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
753 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
754 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
757 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
759 (F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
760 reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
761 can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
762 directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
764 =item Can't localize through a reference
766 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
767 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
768 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
769 that $ref will still be a reference.
771 =item Can't locate %s
773 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
774 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
775 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
776 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
777 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
778 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
779 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
781 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
783 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
784 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
785 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
786 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
788 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
790 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
791 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
792 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
794 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
796 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
797 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
798 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
800 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
802 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
803 doesn't seem to exist.
805 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
807 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
810 =item Can't modify %s in %s
812 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
813 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
815 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
817 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
820 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
822 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
823 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
825 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
827 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
830 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
832 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
833 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
834 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
835 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
836 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
837 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
839 =item Can't open %s: %s
841 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
842 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
843 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
844 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
847 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
849 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
850 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
851 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
852 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
854 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
856 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
857 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
858 the command line for writing.
860 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
862 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
863 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
864 command line for reading.
866 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
868 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
869 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
870 the command line for writing.
872 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
874 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
875 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
878 =item Can't open perl script%s: %s
880 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
882 =item Can't read CRTL environ
884 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
885 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
886 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
887 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
890 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
892 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
893 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
894 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
895 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
897 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
899 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
900 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
901 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
902 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
903 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
904 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
906 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
908 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
909 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
910 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
912 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
914 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
915 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
917 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
919 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
920 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
922 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
924 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
925 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
926 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
928 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
930 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
933 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
935 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
936 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
939 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
941 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
942 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
943 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
944 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
947 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
949 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
950 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
952 =item Can't stat script "%s"
954 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
955 open already. Bizarre.
957 =item Can't swap uid and euid
959 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
962 =item Can't take log of %g
964 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
965 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
966 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
969 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
971 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
972 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
973 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
975 =item Can't undef active subroutine
977 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
978 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
979 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
983 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
984 as the main Perl stack.
986 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
988 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
989 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
990 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
991 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
993 =item Can't upgrade to undef
995 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
996 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
999 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1001 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1002 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1004 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1006 (P) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1007 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1008 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1010 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1012 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1013 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1015 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1017 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1018 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1019 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1021 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1023 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1026 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1028 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1029 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1030 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1031 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1034 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1036 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1037 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1038 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1039 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1042 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1044 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1045 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1046 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1048 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1050 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1051 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1053 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1055 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1056 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1057 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1059 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1061 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1062 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1063 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1064 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1065 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1068 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1070 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1071 references can be weakened.
1073 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1075 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1076 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1077 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1079 =item Character in "C" format wrapped
1085 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1086 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1087 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1091 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1094 =item Character in "c" format wrapped
1100 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1101 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1102 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1104 pack("c", $x & 255);
1106 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1109 =item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
1111 (W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
1113 chmod 777, $filename
1115 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1116 equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1119 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1121 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1123 =item %s: Command not found
1125 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1126 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1128 =item Compilation failed in require
1130 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1131 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1132 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1134 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1136 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1137 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1138 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1139 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1140 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1141 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1142 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1143 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1144 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1146 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1148 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1149 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1150 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1152 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1154 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1155 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1156 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1157 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1160 =item Constant is not %s reference
1162 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1163 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1164 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1165 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1166 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1168 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1170 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1171 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1172 commentary and workarounds.
1174 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1176 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1177 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1180 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1182 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1183 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1185 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1187 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1189 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1191 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1192 expression compiler gave it.
1194 =item corrupted regexp program
1196 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1199 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1201 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1203 =item C<-p> destination: %s
1205 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1206 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1207 redirected it with select().)
1209 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1211 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1212 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1214 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1216 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1217 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1218 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1219 which case it indicates something else.
1221 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1223 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1224 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1225 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1227 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1229 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1230 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1231 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1233 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1235 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1236 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1237 that triggers this error.
1239 =item Did not produce a valid header
1243 =item %s did not return a true value
1245 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1246 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1247 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1248 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1250 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1252 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1255 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1257 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1258 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1261 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1263 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1264 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1269 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1270 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1272 =item Document contains no data
1276 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1278 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1280 =item do_study: out of memory
1282 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1284 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1286 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1287 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1288 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1289 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1290 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1291 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1292 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1293 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1295 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1297 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1300 =item elseif should be elsif
1302 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1303 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1304 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1305 unlikely to be what you want.
1307 =item entering effective %s failed
1309 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1310 effective uids or gids failed.
1312 =item Error converting file specification %s
1314 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1315 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1316 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1317 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1318 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1320 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1322 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1323 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1324 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1326 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1328 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1329 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1330 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1331 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1332 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1333 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1335 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1337 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1338 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1339 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1341 =item Excessively long <> operator
1343 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1344 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1345 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1346 variable and glob that.
1348 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1350 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1352 =item Exiting eval via %s
1354 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1355 goto, or a loop control statement.
1357 =item Exiting format via %s
1359 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1360 goto, or a loop control statement.
1362 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1364 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1365 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1366 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1368 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1370 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1371 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1373 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1375 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1376 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1378 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1380 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1381 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1382 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1383 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1385 =item %s: Expression syntax
1387 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1388 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1390 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1392 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1393 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1394 routines has been prematurely ended.
1396 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1398 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1399 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1400 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1401 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1402 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1404 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1406 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1407 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1408 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1409 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1411 =item fcntl is not implemented
1413 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1414 PDP-11 or something?
1416 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1418 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1419 to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1420 or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1421 the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1423 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1425 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1426 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1427 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1428 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1430 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1432 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1433 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1434 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1437 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1439 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1440 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1441 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1444 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1446 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1447 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1448 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1451 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex;
1453 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1455 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
1456 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
1457 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1459 =item Format not terminated
1461 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1462 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1464 =item Format %s redefined
1466 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1470 eval "format NAME =...";
1473 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1483 (or something like that).
1485 =item %s found where operator expected
1487 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1488 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1489 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1490 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1492 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1494 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1496 =item gethostent not implemented
1498 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1499 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1502 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1504 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1505 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1507 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1509 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1510 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1512 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1514 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1515 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1516 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1518 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1520 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1521 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1522 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1525 =item glob failed (%s)
1527 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1528 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1529 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1530 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1531 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1532 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1533 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1534 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1535 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1536 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1537 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1539 =item Glob not terminated
1541 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1542 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1543 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1544 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1546 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1548 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1549 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1551 =item goto must have label
1553 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1554 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1556 =item %s had compilation errors
1558 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1560 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1562 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1563 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1564 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1566 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1568 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1569 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1571 =item %s has too many errors
1573 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1574 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1576 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1578 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1579 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1580 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1582 =item Identifier too long
1584 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1585 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1586 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1587 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1589 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1591 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1593 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1595 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1596 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1599 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1601 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1602 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1603 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1604 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1605 to your Perl administrator.
1607 =item Illegal division by zero
1609 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1610 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1613 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1615 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1616 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1617 number stopped before the illegal character.
1619 =item Illegal modulus zero
1621 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1622 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1624 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1626 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1627 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1629 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1631 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1633 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1635 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1636 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1638 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1640 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1641 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1643 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1645 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1646 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1647 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1649 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1651 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1652 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1653 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1656 =item (in cleanup) %s
1658 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1659 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1660 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1661 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1662 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1664 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1665 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1667 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1669 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1670 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1671 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1672 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1673 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1674 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1675 L<perlsec> for more information.
1677 =item Insecure directory in %s
1679 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1680 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1681 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1683 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1685 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1686 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1687 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1688 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1689 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1691 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1693 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1694 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1695 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1696 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1697 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1698 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1699 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1700 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1703 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1705 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1706 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1710 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1712 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1713 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1714 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1715 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1716 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1717 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1719 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1721 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
1722 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1726 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1728 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1729 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1730 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1731 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1733 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1735 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1736 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1738 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1740 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1741 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1743 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1745 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1746 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1748 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1750 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1751 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
1752 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
1753 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1754 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1756 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1758 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1759 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1761 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1763 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1764 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1765 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1768 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1770 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1771 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1774 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1776 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1778 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1781 =item ioctl is not implemented
1783 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1784 strange for a machine that supports C.
1786 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
1788 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1789 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1791 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
1793 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
1794 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
1796 =item `%s' is not a code reference
1798 (W) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant needs
1799 to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1802 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1804 (W) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is unaware of.
1806 =item junk on end of regexp
1808 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1810 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1812 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1813 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1816 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1818 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1819 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1822 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1824 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1825 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1828 =item leaving effective %s failed
1830 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1831 effective uids or gids failed.
1833 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1835 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1836 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1839 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1841 (W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1842 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1843 instead on the filehandle.)
1845 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1847 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1848 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1849 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1851 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex;
1853 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1855 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
1856 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The <-- HERE
1857 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1859 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1861 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1869 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1870 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1871 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1872 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1874 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1876 Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1878 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1880 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1881 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1883 =item %s matches null string many times in regex;
1885 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1887 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1888 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
1889 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1892 =item % may only be used in unpack
1894 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
1895 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1896 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1898 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1900 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1901 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1903 =item Method %s not permitted
1907 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1909 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1910 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1911 ended earlier on the current line.
1913 =item Misplaced _ in number
1915 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
1916 separate two digits.
1918 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1920 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1921 double-quotish context.
1923 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1925 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1926 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1928 =item Missing command in piped open
1930 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1931 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1934 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1936 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1937 they have a name with which they can be found.
1939 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1941 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1942 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1943 can vary from one line to the next.
1945 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
1947 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1948 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1950 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1952 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1953 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1956 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1958 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1959 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1960 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1962 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1964 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1965 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1966 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1968 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1971 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1973 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
1974 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
1977 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
1978 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
1981 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
1983 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1984 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1987 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
1989 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1990 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
1992 =item Module name must be constant
1994 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1996 =item Module name required with -%c option
1998 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1999 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2000 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2002 =item msg%s not implemented
2004 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2006 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2008 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2009 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2011 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
2013 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
2014 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
2015 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2017 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
2019 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
2020 must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
2021 of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2023 =item / must follow a numeric type
2025 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
2026 follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2028 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2030 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2033 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2035 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2036 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2037 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2039 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2041 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2042 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2043 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2044 provided for this purpose.
2046 =item Negative length
2048 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2049 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2051 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2053 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2054 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2055 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2057 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2058 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2060 =item %s never introduced
2062 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2063 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2065 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2067 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2068 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2069 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2070 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2072 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2074 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2076 =item No comma allowed after %s
2078 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2079 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2080 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2082 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2083 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2084 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2085 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2086 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2087 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2088 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2089 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2090 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2091 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2092 this error was triggered?
2094 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2096 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2097 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2098 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2100 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2102 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2103 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2104 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2105 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2106 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2108 =item No dbm on this machine
2110 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2111 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2113 =item No DBsub routine
2115 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2116 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2117 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2118 ordinary subroutine call.
2120 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2122 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2123 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2124 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2126 =item No input file after < on command line
2128 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2129 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2130 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2134 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2135 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2137 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2139 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2140 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2142 =item No output file after > on command line
2144 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2145 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2146 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2148 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2150 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2151 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2152 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2154 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2156 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2157 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2158 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2160 =item No Perl script found in input
2162 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2163 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2165 =item No setregid available
2167 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2170 =item No setreuid available
2172 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2175 =item No space allowed after -%c
2177 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2178 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2180 =item No %s specified for -%c
2182 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2183 you haven't specified one.
2185 =item No such pipe open
2187 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2188 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2189 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2191 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2193 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2194 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2195 array indices for that to work.
2197 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2199 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2200 not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2201 %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2202 %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2204 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2206 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2207 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2208 names on your system.
2210 =item Not a CODE reference
2212 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2213 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2214 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2217 =item Not a format reference
2219 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2220 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2222 =item Not a GLOB reference
2224 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2225 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2226 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2227 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2229 =item Not a HASH reference
2231 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2232 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2233 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2235 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2237 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2238 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2239 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2241 =item Not a perl script
2243 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2244 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2247 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2249 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2250 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2251 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2253 =item Not a subroutine reference
2255 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2256 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2257 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2260 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2262 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2263 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2265 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2267 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2269 =item Not enough format arguments
2271 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2272 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2276 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2277 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2280 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2282 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2283 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2284 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2285 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2286 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2288 =item Null filename used
2290 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2291 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2293 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2295 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2298 =item Null picture in formline
2300 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2301 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2302 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2306 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2308 =item NULL regexp argument
2310 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2312 =item NULL regexp parameter
2314 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2316 =item Number too long
2318 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2319 about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2320 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2321 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2324 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2326 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2327 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2330 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2332 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2333 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2334 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2336 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2338 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2340 (W) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of arguments.
2341 The arguments should come in pairs.
2343 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2345 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2346 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2348 =item Offset outside string
2350 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2351 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2352 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2353 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2355 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2357 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2358 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2360 =item %s() on unopened %s
2362 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2363 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2364 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2368 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2372 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2374 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2376 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2377 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2378 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2379 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2381 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2383 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2384 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2385 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2386 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2389 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2391 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2392 in the current lexical scope.
2394 =item Out of memory!
2396 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2397 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2398 no option but to exit immediately.
2400 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2402 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2403 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2404 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2405 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2407 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2409 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2410 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2413 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2414 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2415 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2416 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2417 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2418 where the failed request happened.
2420 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2422 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2423 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2424 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2426 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2428 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2429 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2432 =item @ outside of string
2434 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2435 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2437 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2439 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2440 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2441 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2442 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2446 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2447 page. See L<perlform>.
2451 (P) An internal error.
2453 =item panic: ck_grep
2455 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2457 =item panic: ck_split
2459 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2461 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2463 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2464 there are in the savestack.
2466 =item panic: del_backref
2468 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2473 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2474 it wasn't an eval context.
2476 =item panic: pp_match
2478 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2481 =item panic: do_subst
2483 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2486 =item panic: do_trans_%s
2488 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
2493 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2497 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2498 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2500 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2502 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2504 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2506 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2508 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2510 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2514 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2515 it wasn't a block context.
2517 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2519 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2522 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2524 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2525 invalid enum on the top of it.
2527 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2529 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2530 references to an object.
2534 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2536 =item panic: mapstart
2538 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2540 =item panic: null array
2542 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2544 =item panic: pad_alloc
2546 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2547 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2549 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2551 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2552 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2554 =item panic: pad_free po
2556 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2558 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2560 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2561 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2563 =item panic: pad_sv po
2565 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2567 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2569 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2570 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2572 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2574 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2576 =item panic: pp_iter
2578 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2580 =item panic: pp_split
2582 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2584 =item panic: realloc
2586 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2588 =item panic: restartop
2590 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2591 didn't supply the destination.
2595 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2596 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2598 =item panic: scan_num
2600 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2602 =item panic: sv_insert
2604 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2607 =item panic: top_env
2609 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2613 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2615 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2617 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2618 to even) byte length.
2620 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2622 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2628 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2630 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2632 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2634 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2635 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2636 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2638 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2640 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2641 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2643 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2645 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2647 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2648 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2651 are supported and installed on your system.
2652 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2654 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2655 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2656 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2657 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2658 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2659 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2660 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2661 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2662 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2663 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2665 =item perlio: argument list not closed for layer "%s"
2667 (S) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you forgot
2668 the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
2669 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
2670 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
2671 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
2672 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2674 =item perlio: invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2676 (S) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2677 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of an layer list.
2678 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2679 list was terminated too soon.
2681 =item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2683 (S) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
2684 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2685 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2686 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2687 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2688 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2690 =item Permission denied
2692 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2694 =item pid %x not a child
2696 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2697 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2698 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2700 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex;
2702 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2704 (W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2705 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
2706 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
2707 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
2708 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
2709 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2711 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex;
2713 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2715 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2716 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
2717 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
2718 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
2719 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
2720 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2722 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex;
2724 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2726 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
2727 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
2728 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
2729 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
2730 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2731 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2733 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex;
2735 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2737 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
2738 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2741 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2743 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2744 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2746 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2748 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2749 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2750 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2751 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2753 You probably wrote something like this:
2760 when you should have written this:
2767 If you really want comments, build your list the
2768 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2772 'b', # another comment
2775 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2777 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2778 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2779 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2782 You probably wrote something like this:
2786 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2787 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2791 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2793 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2794 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2795 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2796 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2798 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2800 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2801 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2803 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2805 (D deprecated) You have written something like this:
2809 use attrs qw(locked);
2812 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2818 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2819 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2821 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2823 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2827 is now misinterpreted as
2831 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2832 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2833 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2836 =item Premature end of script headers
2840 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2842 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2843 before now. Check your control flow.
2845 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2847 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2848 before now. Check your control flow.
2850 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2852 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2853 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2854 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2855 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
2858 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2860 (S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2861 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
2863 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex;
2865 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2867 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
2868 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
2869 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2871 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression;
2873 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2875 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2876 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2877 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2878 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2879 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2881 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2884 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2886 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2887 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2888 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2889 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2891 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2893 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2894 before now. Check your control flow.
2896 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2898 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2900 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2902 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2905 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2907 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2908 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2909 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2911 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2913 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2914 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2916 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
2918 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2919 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2922 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2924 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2925 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2926 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2927 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2929 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2930 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2931 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2932 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2934 =item Reference is already weak
2936 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2937 Doing so has no effect.
2939 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2941 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2942 a reference count of other than 1.
2944 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex;
2946 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2948 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
2949 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
2950 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
2951 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
2953 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2956 =item regexp memory corruption
2958 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2959 expression compiler gave it.
2961 =item Regexp out of space
2963 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2966 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
2968 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2969 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2971 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2973 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2974 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2976 =item Reversed %s= operator
2978 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2979 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2981 =item Runaway format
2983 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2984 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2985 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2986 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2987 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2989 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2991 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2992 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2993 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2994 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2995 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2996 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2997 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2999 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3000 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3001 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3004 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3006 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3007 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3008 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3009 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3010 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3011 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3012 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3014 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3015 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3016 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3019 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3021 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3022 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3023 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3024 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3026 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3028 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3029 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
3031 =item Search pattern not terminated
3033 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3034 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3035 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3037 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3039 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3040 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3042 =item select not implemented
3044 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3046 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3048 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3049 the current implementation.
3051 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3053 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3054 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3056 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3058 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3059 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3061 =item sem%s not implemented
3063 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3065 =item send() on closed socket %s
3067 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3068 before now. Check your control flow.
3070 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3072 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3073 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3076 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex;
3078 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3080 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3081 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3082 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3085 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex;
3087 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3089 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3090 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3091 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3093 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex;
3095 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3097 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3098 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3099 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3101 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex;
3103 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3105 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3106 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3107 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3110 =item 500 Server error
3116 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3117 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3118 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3119 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3120 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3121 produce a valid header".
3123 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3125 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3126 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3127 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3128 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3129 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3130 Please see the following for more information:
3132 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
3133 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
3134 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
3135 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
3136 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
3138 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3140 =item setegid() not implemented
3142 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3143 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3146 =item seteuid() not implemented
3148 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3149 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3152 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3154 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3155 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3158 =item setrgid() not implemented
3160 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3161 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3164 =item setruid() not implemented
3166 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3167 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3170 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3172 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3173 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3174 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3176 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3178 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3179 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3181 =item shm%s not implemented
3183 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3185 =item <> should be quotes
3187 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3190 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3192 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3193 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3194 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3195 probably not what you had in mind.
3197 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3199 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3202 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3204 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3205 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3207 =item sort is now a reserved word
3209 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3210 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3212 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3214 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3215 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3216 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3218 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3220 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3221 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3225 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3226 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3227 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3229 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3231 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3232 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3233 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3234 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3237 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3239 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3240 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3242 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3244 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3245 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3246 C<can> may break this.
3248 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3250 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3254 eval "sub name { ... }";
3257 =item Substitution loop
3259 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3260 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3261 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3262 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3264 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3266 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3267 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3268 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3270 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3272 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3273 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3274 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3276 =item substr outside of string
3278 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3279 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3280 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3281 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3282 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3284 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3286 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3287 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3289 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex;
3291 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3293 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3294 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3295 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3296 clustering parentheses:
3298 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3300 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3301 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3303 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex;
3305 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3307 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3308 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3309 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3311 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3313 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3314 and effective uids or gids.
3318 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3320 A keyword is misspelled.
3321 A semicolon is missing.
3323 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3324 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3325 A closing quote is missing.
3327 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3328 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3329 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3330 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3331 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3332 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3333 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3334 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3335 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3338 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3340 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3341 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3346 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3348 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3350 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3351 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3352 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3353 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3355 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3357 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3358 before now. Check your control flow.
3360 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3362 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3363 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3365 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3367 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3368 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3370 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3372 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3373 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3382 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3383 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3385 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3387 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3388 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3389 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3390 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3393 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3395 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3396 to the probings of Configure.
3398 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3400 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3401 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3402 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3405 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3407 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3409 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3410 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3411 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3412 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3413 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3414 target of the change to
3415 %ENV which produced the warning.
3417 =item times not implemented
3419 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3420 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3422 =item Too few args to syscall
3424 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3425 system call to call, silly dilly.
3427 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3429 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3430 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3431 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3432 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3435 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3436 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3437 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3438 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3440 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3441 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3443 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3445 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3446 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3447 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3449 =item Too late to run %s block
3451 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3452 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3453 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3454 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3457 =item Too many args to syscall
3459 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3461 =item Too many arguments for %s
3463 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3467 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3468 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3472 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
3474 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3475 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3477 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3479 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3480 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3481 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3483 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3485 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3488 =item truncate not implemented
3490 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3491 Configure knows about.
3493 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3495 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3496 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3497 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3498 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3500 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3502 (W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3503 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3505 =item umask not implemented
3507 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3508 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3510 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3512 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3514 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3516 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3517 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3519 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3521 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3522 many values were temporarily localized.
3524 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3526 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3527 many blocks were entered and left.
3529 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3531 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3532 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3534 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3536 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3537 another package? See L<perlform>.
3539 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3541 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3542 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3544 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3546 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3547 since been undefined.
3549 =item Undefined subroutine called
3551 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3552 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3554 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3556 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3557 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3559 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3561 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3562 another package? See L<perlform>.
3564 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3566 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3567 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3570 =item %s: Undefined variable
3572 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3573 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3575 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3577 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3578 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3581 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3583 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3586 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
3588 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
3590 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex;
3592 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3594 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
3595 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
3596 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
3597 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
3598 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
3601 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3602 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3604 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3606 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3607 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3608 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3610 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3612 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3613 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3614 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3615 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3617 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3619 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3620 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3621 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
3622 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3624 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3626 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3627 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3628 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3629 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3631 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3633 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3634 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3635 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3636 you were last editing.
3638 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3640 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3641 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3642 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3645 =item Unrecognized character %s
3647 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3648 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3649 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3651 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3653 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3654 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3655 understood literally.
3657 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex;
3659 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3661 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3662 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
3663 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
3664 literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3665 escape was discovered.
3667 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3669 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3672 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3674 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3675 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3678 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3680 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3681 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3682 bad switch on your behalf.)
3684 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3686 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3687 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3688 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3690 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3692 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3694 =item Unsupported function %s
3696 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3697 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3699 =item Unsupported function fork
3701 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3703 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3704 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3705 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3707 =item Unsupported script encoding
3709 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3710 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3712 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3714 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3715 least that's what Configure thought.
3717 =item Unterminated attribute list
3719 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3720 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3721 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3722 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3724 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3726 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3727 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3728 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3729 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3731 =item Unterminated compressed integer
3733 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3734 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3735 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3737 =item Unterminated <> operator
3739 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3740 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3741 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3742 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3744 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3746 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3747 still valid when C<untie> was called.
3749 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex;
3751 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3753 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
3754 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
3756 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
3760 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
3762 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3763 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3765 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex;
3767 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3769 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
3770 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
3772 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
3776 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
3778 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3779 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3781 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3783 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3784 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3785 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3786 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3787 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3788 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3793 when you meant to say
3795 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3797 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3798 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3803 when you should have said
3807 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3808 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3809 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3810 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3811 L<perlref> for more on this.
3813 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
3814 since they are often used in statements like
3816 1 while sub_with_side_effects() ;
3818 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
3821 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3823 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3825 =item Useless use of %s with no values
3827 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
3828 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
3829 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
3830 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
3831 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
3832 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
3834 =item "use" not allowed in expression
3836 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3837 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3839 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3841 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
3842 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3844 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3846 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
3847 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
3848 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3850 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3852 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
3853 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
3854 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
3855 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
3858 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
3859 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
3860 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
3861 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
3864 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3865 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
3866 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
3867 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
3870 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
3871 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3872 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3874 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3876 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3877 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3879 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3881 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
3882 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
3883 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
3884 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3886 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3888 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
3889 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
3890 old way has bad side effects.
3892 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3894 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
3895 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3897 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
3899 (W) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
3900 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
3901 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
3903 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
3904 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
3905 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
3906 operators and then you assumedly know what you are doing.
3908 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3910 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
3911 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
3912 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
3913 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
3914 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
3915 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3917 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3919 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
3920 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
3921 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3923 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
3924 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
3925 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
3926 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
3927 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
3928 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
3931 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
3933 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in C<%foo->{"bar"}>
3934 or C<%$ref->{"hello"}. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to allow this syntax,
3935 but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be removed in a future
3938 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
3940 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in C<@foo->[23]>
3941 or C<@$ref->[99]>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to allow this syntax, but
3942 shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be removed in a future version.
3944 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3946 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
3947 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
3948 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
3949 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
3950 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
3951 C<defined> operator.
3953 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3955 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
3956 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
3957 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
3960 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3962 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
3963 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3964 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
3965 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
3966 front of your variable.
3968 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
3970 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
3971 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
3972 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
3973 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
3974 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
3976 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3978 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
3979 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
3980 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
3981 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
3983 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3985 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3986 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
3987 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3988 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
3989 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
3990 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
3992 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
3993 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
3994 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
3995 between interferes with this feature.
3997 =item Variable syntax
3999 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4000 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4003 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4005 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
4006 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
4008 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
4009 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4010 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4011 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4012 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4013 variable will no longer be shared.
4015 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
4016 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
4017 will I<never> share the given variable.
4019 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4020 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
4021 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
4022 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
4024 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex;
4026 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4028 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
4029 known at compile time. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4030 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4032 =item Version number must be a constant number
4034 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4035 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4038 =item Warning: something's wrong
4040 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
4041 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
4043 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
4045 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4046 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4049 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
4051 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4052 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4053 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4054 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
4058 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4062 but in actual fact, you got
4066 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
4068 =item Wide character in %s
4070 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting one.
4072 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
4074 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4075 before now. Check your control flow.
4077 =item X outside of string
4079 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
4080 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4082 =item x outside of string
4084 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
4085 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4087 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
4089 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4092 =item Xsub called in sort
4094 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4097 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
4099 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4100 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4101 Use a filename instead.
4103 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
4105 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
4106 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
4107 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in the
4108 eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
4110 =item You need to quote "%s"
4112 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
4113 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
4114 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
4115 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
4116 what you want, put an & in front.)