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 before << HERE in regex 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 chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
1081 (W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
1083 chmod 777, $filename
1085 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1086 equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1089 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1091 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1093 =item %s: Command not found
1095 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1096 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1098 =item Compilation failed in require
1100 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1101 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1102 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1104 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1106 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1107 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1108 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1109 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1110 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1111 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1112 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1113 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1114 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1116 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1118 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1119 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1120 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1122 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1124 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1125 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1126 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1127 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1130 =item Constant is not %s reference
1132 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1133 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1134 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1135 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1136 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1138 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1140 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1141 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1142 commentary and workarounds.
1144 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1146 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1147 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1150 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1152 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1153 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1155 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1157 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1159 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1161 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1162 expression compiler gave it.
1164 =item corrupted regexp program
1166 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1169 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1171 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1173 =item C<-p> destination: %s
1175 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1176 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1177 redirected it with select().)
1179 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1181 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1182 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1184 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1186 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1187 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1188 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1189 which case it indicates something else.
1191 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1193 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1194 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1195 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1197 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1199 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1200 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1201 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1203 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1205 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1206 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1207 that triggers this error.
1209 =item Did not produce a valid header
1213 =item %s did not return a true value
1215 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1216 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1217 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1218 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1220 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1222 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1225 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1227 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1228 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1231 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1233 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1234 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1239 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1240 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1242 =item Document contains no data
1246 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1248 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1250 =item do_study: out of memory
1252 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1254 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1256 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1257 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1258 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1259 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1260 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1261 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1262 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1263 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1265 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1267 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1270 =item elseif should be elsif
1272 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1273 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1274 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1275 unlikely to be what you want.
1277 =item entering effective %s failed
1279 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1280 effective uids or gids failed.
1282 =item Error converting file specification %s
1284 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1285 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1286 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1287 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1288 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1290 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1292 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1293 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1294 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1296 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1298 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1299 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1300 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1301 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1302 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1303 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1305 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1307 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1308 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1309 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1311 =item Excessively long <> operator
1313 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1314 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1315 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1316 variable and glob that.
1318 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1320 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1322 =item Exiting eval via %s
1324 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1325 goto, or a loop control statement.
1327 =item Exiting format via %s
1329 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1330 goto, or a loop control statement.
1332 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1334 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1335 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1336 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1338 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1340 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1341 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1343 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1345 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1346 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1348 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1350 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1351 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1352 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1353 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1355 =item %s: Expression syntax
1357 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1358 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1360 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1362 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1363 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1364 routines has been prematurely ended.
1366 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1368 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1369 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The
1370 "-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider
1371 quoting the "-", "\-". See L<perlre>.
1373 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1375 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1376 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1377 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1378 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1380 =item fcntl is not implemented
1382 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1383 PDP-11 or something?
1385 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1387 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1388 to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1389 or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1390 the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1392 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1394 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1395 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1396 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1397 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1399 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1401 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1402 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1403 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1406 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1408 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1409 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1410 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1413 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1415 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1416 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1417 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1420 =item Quantifier follows nothing before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1422 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
1423 meant it literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1424 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1426 =item Format not terminated
1428 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1429 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1431 =item Format %s redefined
1433 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1437 eval "format NAME =...";
1440 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1450 (or something like that).
1452 =item %s found where operator expected
1454 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1455 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1456 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1457 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1459 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1461 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1463 =item gethostent not implemented
1465 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1466 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1469 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1471 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1472 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1474 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1476 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1477 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1479 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1481 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1482 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1483 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1485 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1487 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1488 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1489 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1492 =item glob failed (%s)
1494 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1495 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1496 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1497 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1498 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1499 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1500 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1501 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1502 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1503 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1504 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1506 =item Glob not terminated
1508 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1509 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1510 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1511 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1513 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1515 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1516 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1518 =item goto must have label
1520 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1521 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1523 =item %s had compilation errors
1525 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1527 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1529 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1530 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1531 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1533 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1535 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1536 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1538 =item %s has too many errors
1540 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1541 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1543 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1545 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1546 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1547 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1549 =item Identifier too long
1551 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1552 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1553 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1554 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1556 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1558 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1560 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1562 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1563 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1566 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1568 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1569 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1570 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1571 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1572 to your Perl administrator.
1574 =item Illegal division by zero
1576 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1577 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1580 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1582 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1583 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1584 number stopped before the illegal character.
1586 =item Illegal modulus zero
1588 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1589 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1591 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1593 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1594 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1596 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1598 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1600 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1602 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1603 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1605 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1607 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1608 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1610 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1612 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1613 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1614 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1616 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1618 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1619 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1620 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1623 =item (in cleanup) %s
1625 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1626 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1627 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1628 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1629 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1631 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1632 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1634 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1636 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1637 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1638 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1639 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1640 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1641 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1642 L<perlsec> for more information.
1644 =item Insecure directory in %s
1646 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1647 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1648 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1650 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1652 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1653 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1654 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1655 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1656 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1658 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1660 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1661 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1662 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1663 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1664 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1665 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1666 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1667 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1670 =item Internal disaster before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1672 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1673 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1677 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1679 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1680 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1681 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1682 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1683 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1684 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1686 =item Internal urp before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1688 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The <<<HERE
1689 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1692 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1694 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1695 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1696 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1697 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1699 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1701 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1702 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1704 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1706 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1707 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1709 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1711 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1712 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1714 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1716 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1717 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you
1718 forgot the C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly
1719 braces can go only up to C<ff>. See L<perlre>.
1721 =item invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1723 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1724 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1726 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1728 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1729 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1730 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1733 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1735 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1736 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1739 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1741 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1743 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1746 =item ioctl is not implemented
1748 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1749 strange for a machine that supports C.
1751 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
1753 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1754 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1756 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
1758 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
1759 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
1761 =item `%s' is not a code reference
1763 (W) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant needs
1764 to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1767 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1769 (W) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is unaware of.
1771 =item junk on end of regexp
1773 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1775 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1777 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1778 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1781 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1783 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1784 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1787 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1789 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1790 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1793 =item leaving effective %s failed
1795 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1796 effective uids or gids failed.
1798 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1800 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1801 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1804 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1806 (W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1807 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1808 instead on the filehandle.)
1810 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1812 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1813 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1814 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1816 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented before << HERE %s
1818 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
1819 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The << HERE shows in
1820 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1822 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1824 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1832 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1833 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1834 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1835 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1837 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1839 Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1841 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1843 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1844 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1846 =item %s matches null string many times
1848 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1849 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See
1852 =item % may only be used in unpack
1854 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
1855 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1856 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1858 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1860 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1861 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1863 =item Method %s not permitted
1867 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1869 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1870 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1871 ended earlier on the current line.
1873 =item Misplaced _ in number
1875 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
1876 separate two digits.
1878 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1880 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1881 double-quotish context.
1883 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1885 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1886 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1888 =item Missing command in piped open
1890 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1891 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1894 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1896 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1897 they have a name with which they can be found.
1899 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1901 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1902 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1903 can vary from one line to the next.
1905 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
1907 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1908 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1910 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1912 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1913 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1916 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1918 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1919 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1920 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1922 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1924 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1925 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1926 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1928 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1931 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1933 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
1934 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
1937 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
1938 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
1941 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
1943 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1944 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1947 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
1949 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1950 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
1952 =item Module name must be constant
1954 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1956 =item Module name required with -%c option
1958 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1959 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1960 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
1962 =item msg%s not implemented
1964 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1966 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1968 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
1969 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1971 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
1973 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
1974 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
1975 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1977 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1979 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
1980 must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
1981 of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1983 =item / must follow a numeric type
1985 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
1986 follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1988 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
1990 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
1993 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
1995 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
1996 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
1997 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
1999 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2001 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2002 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2003 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2004 provided for this purpose.
2006 =item Negative length
2008 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2009 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2011 =item Nested quantifiers before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2013 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2014 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The << HERE shows in the regular
2015 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2017 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2018 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2021 =item %s never introduced
2023 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2024 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2026 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2028 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2029 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2030 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2031 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2033 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2035 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2037 =item No comma allowed after %s
2039 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2040 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2041 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2043 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2044 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2045 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2046 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2047 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2048 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2049 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2050 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2051 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2052 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2053 this error was triggered?
2055 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2057 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2058 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2059 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2061 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2063 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2064 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2065 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2066 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2067 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2069 =item No dbm on this machine
2071 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2072 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2074 =item No DBsub routine
2076 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2077 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2078 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2079 ordinary subroutine call.
2081 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2083 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2084 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2085 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2087 =item No input file after < on command line
2089 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2090 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2091 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2095 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2096 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2098 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2100 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2101 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2103 =item No output file after > on command line
2105 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2106 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2107 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2109 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2111 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2112 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2113 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2115 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2117 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2118 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2119 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2121 =item No Perl script found in input
2123 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2124 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2126 =item No setregid available
2128 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2131 =item No setreuid available
2133 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2136 =item No space allowed after -%c
2138 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2139 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2141 =item No %s specified for -%c
2143 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2144 you haven't specified one.
2146 =item No such pipe open
2148 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2149 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2150 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2152 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2154 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2155 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2156 array indices for that to work.
2158 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2160 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2161 not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2162 %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2163 %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2165 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2167 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2168 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2169 names on your system.
2171 =item Not a CODE reference
2173 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2174 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2175 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2178 =item Not a format reference
2180 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2181 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2183 =item Not a GLOB reference
2185 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2186 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2187 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2188 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2190 =item Not a HASH reference
2192 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2193 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2194 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2196 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2198 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2199 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2200 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2202 =item Not a perl script
2204 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2205 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2208 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2210 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2211 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2212 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2214 =item Not a subroutine reference
2216 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2217 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2218 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2221 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2223 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2224 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2226 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2228 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2230 =item Not enough format arguments
2232 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2233 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2237 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2238 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2241 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2243 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2244 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2245 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2246 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2247 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2249 =item Null filename used
2251 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2252 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2254 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2256 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2259 =item Null picture in formline
2261 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2262 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2263 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2267 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2269 =item NULL regexp argument
2271 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2273 =item NULL regexp parameter
2275 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2277 =item Number too long
2279 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2280 about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2281 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2282 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2285 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2287 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2288 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2291 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2293 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2294 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2295 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2297 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2299 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2301 (W) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of arguments.
2302 The arguments should come in pairs.
2304 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2306 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2307 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2309 =item Offset outside string
2311 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2312 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2313 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2314 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2316 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2318 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2319 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2321 =item %s() on unopened %s
2323 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2324 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2325 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2329 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2333 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2335 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2337 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2338 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2339 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2340 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2342 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2344 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2345 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2346 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2347 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2350 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2352 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2353 in the current lexical scope.
2355 =item Out of memory!
2357 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2358 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2359 no option but to exit immediately.
2361 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2363 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2364 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2365 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2366 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2368 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2370 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2371 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2374 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2375 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2376 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2377 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2378 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2379 where the failed request happened.
2381 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2383 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2384 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2385 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2387 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2389 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2390 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2393 =item @ outside of string
2395 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2396 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2398 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2400 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2401 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2402 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2403 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2407 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2408 page. See L<perlform>.
2412 (P) An internal error.
2414 =item panic: ck_grep
2416 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2418 =item panic: ck_split
2420 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2422 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2424 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2425 there are in the savestack.
2427 =item panic: del_backref
2429 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2434 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2435 it wasn't an eval context.
2437 =item panic: pp_match
2439 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2442 =item panic: do_subst
2444 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2447 =item panic: do_trans_%s
2449 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
2454 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2458 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2459 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2461 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2463 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2465 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2467 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2469 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2471 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2475 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2476 it wasn't a block context.
2478 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2480 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2483 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2485 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2486 invalid enum on the top of it.
2488 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2490 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2491 references to an object.
2495 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2497 =item panic: mapstart
2499 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2501 =item panic: null array
2503 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2505 =item panic: pad_alloc
2507 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2508 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2510 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2512 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2513 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2515 =item panic: pad_free po
2517 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2519 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2521 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2522 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2524 =item panic: pad_sv po
2526 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2528 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2530 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2531 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2533 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2535 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2537 =item panic: pp_iter
2539 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2541 =item panic: pp_split
2543 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2545 =item panic: realloc
2547 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2549 =item panic: restartop
2551 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2552 didn't supply the destination.
2556 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2557 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2559 =item panic: scan_num
2561 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2563 =item panic: sv_insert
2565 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2568 =item panic: top_env
2570 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2574 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2576 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2578 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2579 to even) byte length.
2581 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2583 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2589 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2591 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2593 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2595 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2596 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2597 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2599 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2601 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2602 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2604 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2606 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2608 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2609 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2612 are supported and installed on your system.
2613 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2615 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2616 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2617 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2618 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2619 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2620 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2621 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2622 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2623 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2624 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2626 =item perlio: argument list not closed for layer "%s"
2628 (S) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you forgot
2629 the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
2630 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
2631 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
2632 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
2633 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2635 =item perlio: invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2637 (S) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2638 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of an layer list.
2639 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2640 list was terminated too soon.
2642 =item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2644 (S) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
2645 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2646 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2647 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2648 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2649 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2651 =item Permission denied
2653 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2655 =item pid %x not a child
2657 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2658 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2659 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2661 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
2663 (W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2664 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for
2665 example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not
2666 currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future
2667 extensions and will cause fatal errors.
2669 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
2671 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2672 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future
2673 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2674 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2675 with the backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
2677 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
2679 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2680 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future
2681 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2682 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2683 with the backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
2685 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown
2687 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. See
2690 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2692 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2693 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2695 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2697 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2698 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2699 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2700 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2702 You probably wrote something like this:
2709 when you should have written this:
2716 If you really want comments, build your list the
2717 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2721 'b', # another comment
2724 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2726 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2727 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2728 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2731 You probably wrote something like this:
2735 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2736 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2740 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2742 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2743 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2744 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2745 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2747 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2749 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2750 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2752 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2754 (W deprecated) You have written something like this:
2758 use attrs qw(locked);
2761 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2767 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2768 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2770 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2772 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2776 is now misinterpreted as
2780 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2781 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2782 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2785 =item Premature end of script headers
2789 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2791 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2792 before now. Check your control flow.
2794 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2796 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2797 before now. Check your control flow.
2799 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2801 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2802 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2803 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2804 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
2807 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2809 (S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2810 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
2812 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2814 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
2815 {min,max} construct. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
2816 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2818 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression before << HERE %s
2820 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2821 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2822 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2823 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2824 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2826 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2828 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2829 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2830 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2831 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2833 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2835 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2836 before now. Check your control flow.
2838 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2840 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2842 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2844 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2847 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2849 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2850 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2851 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2853 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2855 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2856 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2858 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
2860 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2861 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2864 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2866 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2867 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2868 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2869 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2871 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2872 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2873 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2874 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2876 =item Reference is already weak
2878 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2879 Doing so has no effect.
2881 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2883 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2884 a reference count of other than 1.
2886 =item Reference to nonexistent group before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2888 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
2889 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
2890 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
2891 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
2893 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2896 =item regexp memory corruption
2898 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2899 expression compiler gave it.
2901 =item Regexp out of space
2903 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2906 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
2908 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2909 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2911 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2913 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2914 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2916 =item Reversed %s= operator
2918 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2919 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2921 =item Runaway format
2923 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2924 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2925 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2926 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2927 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2929 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2931 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2932 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2933 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2934 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2935 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2936 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2937 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2939 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2940 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2941 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2944 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2946 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
2947 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
2948 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
2949 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2950 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2951 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2952 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2954 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
2955 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
2956 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2959 =item Scalars leaked: %d
2961 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
2962 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
2963 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
2964 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
2966 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2968 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2969 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2971 =item Search pattern not terminated
2973 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2974 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2975 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2977 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
2979 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
2980 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2982 =item select not implemented
2984 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2986 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
2988 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
2989 the current implementation.
2991 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2993 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
2994 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2996 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2998 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
2999 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3001 =item sem%s not implemented
3003 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3005 =item send() on closed socket %s
3007 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3008 before now. Check your control flow.
3010 =item Sequence (? incomplete before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3012 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <<<HERE
3013 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3016 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in %s
3018 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3019 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. See L<perlre>.
3021 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented before << HERE mark in %s
3023 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3024 has not yet been written. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
3025 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3027 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized before << HERE mark in %s
3029 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
3030 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
3031 where the problem was discovered.
3034 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
3036 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3037 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
3039 =item 500 Server error
3045 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3046 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3047 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3048 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3049 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3050 produce a valid header".
3052 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3054 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3055 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3056 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3057 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3058 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3059 Please see the following for more information:
3061 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
3062 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
3063 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
3064 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
3065 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
3067 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3069 =item setegid() not implemented
3071 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3072 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3075 =item seteuid() not implemented
3077 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3078 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3081 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3083 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3084 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3087 =item setrgid() not implemented
3089 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3090 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3093 =item setruid() not implemented
3095 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3096 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3099 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3101 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3102 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3103 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3105 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3107 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3108 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3110 =item shm%s not implemented
3112 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3114 =item <> should be quotes
3116 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3119 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3121 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3122 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3123 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3124 probably not what you had in mind.
3126 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3128 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3131 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3133 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3134 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3136 =item sort is now a reserved word
3138 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3139 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3141 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3143 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3144 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3145 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3147 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3149 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3150 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3154 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3155 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3156 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3158 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3160 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3161 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3162 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3163 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3166 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3168 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3169 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3171 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3173 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3174 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3175 C<can> may break this.
3177 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3179 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3183 eval "sub name { ... }";
3186 =item Substitution loop
3188 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3189 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3190 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3191 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3193 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3195 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3196 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3197 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3199 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3201 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3202 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3203 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3205 =item substr outside of string
3207 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3208 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3209 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3210 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3211 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3213 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3215 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3216 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3218 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches before << HE%s
3220 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3221 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3222 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3223 clustering parentheses:
3225 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3227 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3228 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3230 =item Switch condition not recognized before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3232 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3233 number, it can be only a number. The << HERE shows in the regular expression
3234 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3236 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3238 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3239 and effective uids or gids.
3243 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3245 A keyword is misspelled.
3246 A semicolon is missing.
3248 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3249 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3250 A closing quote is missing.
3252 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3253 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3254 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3255 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3256 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3257 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3258 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3259 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3260 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3263 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3265 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3266 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3271 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3273 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3275 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3276 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3277 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3278 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3280 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3282 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3283 before now. Check your control flow.
3285 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3287 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3288 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3290 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3292 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3293 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3295 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3297 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3298 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3307 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3308 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3310 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3312 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3313 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3314 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3315 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3318 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3320 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3321 to the probings of Configure.
3323 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3325 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3326 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3327 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3330 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3332 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3334 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3335 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3336 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3337 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3338 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3339 target of the change to
3340 %ENV which produced the warning.
3342 =item times not implemented
3344 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3345 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3347 =item Too few args to syscall
3349 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3350 system call to call, silly dilly.
3352 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3354 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3355 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3356 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3357 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3360 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3361 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3362 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3363 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3365 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3366 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3368 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3370 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3371 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3372 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3374 =item Too late to run %s block
3376 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3377 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3378 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3379 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3382 =item Too many args to syscall
3384 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3386 =item Too many arguments for %s
3388 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3392 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3393 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3397 =item trailing \ in regexp
3399 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3400 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3402 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3404 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3405 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3406 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3408 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3410 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3413 =item truncate not implemented
3415 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3416 Configure knows about.
3418 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3420 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3421 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3422 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3423 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3425 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3427 (W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3428 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3430 =item umask not implemented
3432 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3433 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3435 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3437 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3439 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3441 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3442 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3444 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3446 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3447 many values were temporarily localized.
3449 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3451 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3452 many blocks were entered and left.
3454 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3456 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3457 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3459 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3461 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3462 another package? See L<perlform>.
3464 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3466 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3467 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3469 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3471 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3472 since been undefined.
3474 =item Undefined subroutine called
3476 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3477 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3479 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3481 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3482 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3484 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3486 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3487 another package? See L<perlform>.
3489 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3491 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3492 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3495 =item %s: Undefined variable
3497 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3498 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3500 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3502 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3503 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3506 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3508 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3511 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3513 (F) The condition of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct is not
3514 known. The condition may be lookaround (the condition is true if the
3515 lookaround is true), a (?{...}) construct (the condition is true if the
3516 code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the condition is true if the
3517 set of capturing parentheses named by the number is defined).
3519 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3520 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3522 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3524 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3525 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3526 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3528 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3530 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3531 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3532 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3533 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3535 =item unmatched [ before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3537 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3538 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3539 first. See L<perlre>. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
3540 where the escape was discovered.
3542 =item unmatched ( in regexp before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3544 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3545 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3546 matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3548 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3550 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3551 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3552 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3553 you were last editing.
3555 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3557 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3558 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3559 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3562 =item Unrecognized character %s
3564 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3565 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3566 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3568 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3570 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3571 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3572 understood literally.
3574 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through before << HERE in m/%s/
3576 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3577 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
3578 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
3579 literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the escape
3583 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3585 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3588 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3590 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3591 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3594 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3596 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3597 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3598 bad switch on your behalf.)
3600 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3602 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3603 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3604 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3606 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3608 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3610 =item Unsupported function %s
3612 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3613 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3615 =item Unsupported function fork
3617 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3619 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3620 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3621 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3623 =item Unsupported script encoding
3625 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3626 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3628 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3630 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3631 least that's what Configure thought.
3633 =item Unterminated attribute list
3635 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3636 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3637 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3638 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3640 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3642 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3643 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3644 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3645 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3647 =item Unterminated compressed integer
3649 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3650 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3651 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3653 =item Unterminated <> operator
3655 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3656 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3657 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3658 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3660 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3662 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3663 still valid when C<untie> was called.
3665 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3667 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3668 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3669 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3670 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3671 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3672 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3677 when you meant to say
3679 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3681 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3682 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3687 when you should have said
3691 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3692 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3693 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3694 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3695 L<perlref> for more on this.
3697 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
3698 since they are often used in statements like
3700 1 while sub_with_side_effects() ;
3702 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
3705 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3707 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3709 =item Useless use of %s with no values
3711 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
3712 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
3713 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
3714 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
3715 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
3716 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
3718 =item "use" not allowed in expression
3720 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3721 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3723 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3725 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
3726 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3728 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3730 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
3731 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
3732 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3734 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3736 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
3737 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
3738 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
3739 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
3742 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
3743 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
3744 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
3745 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
3748 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3749 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
3750 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
3751 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
3754 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
3755 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3756 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3758 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3760 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3761 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3763 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3765 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
3766 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
3767 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
3768 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3770 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3772 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
3773 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
3774 old way has bad side effects.
3776 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3778 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
3779 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3781 =item Use of reference "%s" in array index
3783 (W) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
3784 isn't what you mean, because references tend to be huge numbers which
3785 take you out of memory, and so usually indicates programmer error.
3787 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
3790 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3792 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
3793 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
3794 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
3795 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
3796 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
3797 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3799 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3801 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
3802 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
3803 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3805 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
3806 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
3807 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
3808 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
3809 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
3810 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
3813 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3815 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
3816 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
3817 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
3818 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
3819 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
3820 C<defined> operator.
3822 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3824 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
3825 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
3826 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
3829 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3831 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
3832 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3833 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
3834 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
3835 front of your variable.
3837 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
3839 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
3840 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
3841 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
3842 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
3843 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
3845 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3847 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
3848 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
3849 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
3850 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
3852 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3854 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3855 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
3856 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3857 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
3858 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
3859 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
3861 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
3862 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
3863 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
3864 between interferes with this feature.
3866 =item Variable syntax
3868 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3869 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3872 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3874 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
3875 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3877 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3878 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
3879 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
3880 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
3881 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
3882 variable will no longer be shared.
3884 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3885 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3886 will I<never> share the given variable.
3888 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3889 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3890 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
3891 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
3893 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented before << HERE in %s
3895 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
3896 known at compile time. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3897 the problem was discovered.
3899 =item Version number must be a constant number
3901 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3902 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3905 =item Warning: something's wrong
3907 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3908 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3910 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3912 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
3913 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
3916 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3918 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
3919 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
3920 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
3921 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3925 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3929 but in actual fact, you got
3933 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3935 =item Wide character in %s
3937 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting one.
3939 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
3941 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3942 before now. Check your control flow.
3944 =item X outside of string
3946 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3947 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3949 =item x outside of string
3951 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3952 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3954 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3956 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3959 =item Xsub called in sort
3961 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3964 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3966 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
3967 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3968 Use a filename instead.
3970 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3972 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3973 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3974 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in the
3975 eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3977 =item You need to quote "%s"
3979 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
3980 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
3981 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
3982 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
3983 what you want, put an & in front.)