3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
24 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
25 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
26 The symbols C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
30 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
32 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34 if you want to localize a package variable.
36 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
38 (W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
39 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
40 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
41 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
44 =item "no" not allowed in expression
46 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
49 =item "use" not allowed in expression
51 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
54 =item % may only be used in unpack
56 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
57 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
58 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
60 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
62 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
63 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
64 C<'>-delimited regular expression.
66 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
68 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
69 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
70 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
72 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
74 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
79 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
81 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
86 or a hash slice, such as
88 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
89 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
91 =item %s did not return a true value
93 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
94 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
95 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
96 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
98 =item %s found where operator expected
100 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
101 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
102 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
103 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
105 =item %s had compilation errors
107 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
109 =item %s has too many errors
111 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
112 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
114 =item %s matches null string many times
116 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
117 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
119 =item %s never introduced
121 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
122 before it could possibly have been used.
126 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
128 =item %s: Command not found
130 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
131 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
134 =item %s: Expression syntax
136 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
137 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
140 =item %s: Undefined variable
142 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
143 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
148 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
149 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
152 =item (in cleanup) %s
154 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
155 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
156 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
157 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
158 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
161 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
162 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
164 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
166 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
167 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
168 the previous line just because you saw this message.
170 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
172 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
173 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
175 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
177 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
178 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
180 =item C<-p> destination: %s
182 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
183 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
184 redirected it with select().)
186 =item 500 Server error
190 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
192 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
193 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
195 =item @ outside of string
197 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
198 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
200 =item accept() on closed fd
202 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
203 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
205 =item Allocation too large: %lx
207 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
209 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
211 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
212 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
213 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
214 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
215 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
216 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
218 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
220 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
222 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
224 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
225 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
226 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
228 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
230 (W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
231 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
232 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
235 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
236 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
237 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
238 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
240 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
241 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
242 to be an object method (see L<attrs>).
244 =item Args must match #! line
246 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
247 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
248 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
249 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
251 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
253 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
254 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
255 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
257 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
259 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
260 is now heavily deprecated.
262 =item assertion botched: %s
264 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
266 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
268 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
270 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
272 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
273 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
274 know which context to supply to the right side.
276 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
278 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
279 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
282 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
284 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
285 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
286 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
287 that can no longer be found in the table.
289 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
291 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
292 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
293 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
294 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
297 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
299 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
301 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
303 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
304 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
305 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
306 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
307 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
308 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
310 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
312 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
313 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
314 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
315 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
316 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
319 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
321 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
322 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
323 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
325 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
327 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
328 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
329 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
330 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
332 =item Bad filehandle: %s
334 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
335 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
336 did it in another package.
338 =item Bad free() ignored
340 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
341 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
342 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
344 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
345 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
346 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
351 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
353 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
355 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
356 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
359 =item Bad name after %s::
361 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
362 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
371 $sym = "mypack::$var";
373 =item Bad symbol for array
375 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
376 wasn't a symbol table entry.
378 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
380 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
381 wasn't a symbol table entry.
383 =item Bad symbol for hash
385 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
386 wasn't a symbol table entry.
388 =item Badly placed ()'s
390 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
391 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
394 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
396 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
397 subroutine identifier, in curly braces or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
398 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
400 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
402 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
403 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
404 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
406 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
408 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
409 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
411 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
413 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
414 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
415 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
416 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
417 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
419 =item bind() on closed fd
421 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
422 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
424 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
426 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
428 =item Callback called exit
430 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
431 exited by calling exit.
433 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
435 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
436 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
437 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
438 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
440 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
442 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
443 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
445 =item Can't "last" outside a block
447 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
448 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
449 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
450 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
451 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
452 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
454 =item Can't "next" outside a block
456 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
457 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
458 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
459 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
460 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
462 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
464 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
465 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
466 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
467 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
468 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
470 =item Can't bless non-reference value
472 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
473 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
475 =item Can't break at that line
477 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
478 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
481 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
483 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
484 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
485 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
487 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
489 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
490 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
491 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
492 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
494 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
496 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
497 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
498 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
499 Something like this will reproduce the error:
502 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
503 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
505 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
507 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
508 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
509 Something like this will reproduce the error:
512 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
513 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
515 =item Can't chdir to %s
517 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
518 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
520 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s"
522 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
524 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
526 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
527 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
537 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
539 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
541 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
542 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
544 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
546 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
547 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
549 =item Can't coerce array into hash
551 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
552 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
553 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
555 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
557 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
558 or other plumbing problems.
560 =item Can't declare %s in my
562 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
563 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
565 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
567 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
569 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
571 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
572 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
575 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
577 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
579 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
581 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
582 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
584 =item Can't do setegid!
586 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
589 =item Can't do seteuid!
591 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
593 =item Can't do setuid
595 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
596 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
597 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
598 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
599 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
600 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
602 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
604 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
605 without flags is emulated.
607 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
609 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
610 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
612 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
614 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
615 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
617 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
619 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
620 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
621 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
622 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
623 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
624 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
628 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
629 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
630 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
632 =item Can't execute %s
634 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
635 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
637 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
639 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
640 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
641 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
643 =item Can't find %s on PATH
645 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
648 =item Can't find label %s
650 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
651 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
653 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
655 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
656 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
657 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
659 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
661 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
662 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
663 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
667 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
669 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
671 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
672 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
673 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
674 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
675 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
676 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
677 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
678 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
679 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
680 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
681 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
682 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
683 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
684 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
686 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
688 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
689 can't retrieve its name for later use.
691 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
693 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
694 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
696 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
698 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
699 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
700 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
703 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
705 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
706 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
708 =item Can't localize through a reference
710 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
711 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
712 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
713 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
715 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
717 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
718 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
719 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
722 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
724 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
725 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
726 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
727 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
729 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
731 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
732 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
733 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
734 doing C<make install>.
736 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
738 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
739 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set the
740 PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra library
741 is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
742 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
744 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
746 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
747 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
748 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
750 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
752 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
755 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
757 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
759 =item Can't modify %s in %s
761 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
762 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
764 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
766 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
769 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
771 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
774 =item Can't open %s: %s
776 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
777 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
778 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
779 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
782 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
784 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
785 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
786 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
787 and then read it in under a different file handle.
789 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
791 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
792 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
793 command line for writing.
795 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
797 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
798 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
800 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
802 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
803 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
806 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
808 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
809 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
811 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
813 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
815 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
817 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
818 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
819 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
820 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
822 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
824 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
825 you don't have write permission to the directory.
827 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
829 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
830 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
832 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
834 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
837 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
839 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
840 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
842 =item Can't stat script "%s"
844 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
845 it open already. Bizarre.
847 =item Can't swap uid and euid
849 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
852 =item Can't take log of %g
854 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
855 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
856 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
857 the negative numbers.
859 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
861 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
862 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
863 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
865 =item Can't undef active subroutine
867 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
868 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
869 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
873 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
874 as the main Perl stack.
876 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
878 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
879 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
880 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
881 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
883 =item Can't upgrade to undef
885 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
886 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
887 code calling sv_upgrade.
889 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
891 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
892 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
893 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
895 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
897 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
898 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
899 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
900 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
903 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
905 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
906 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
907 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
909 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
911 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
913 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
915 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
916 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
917 test the type of the reference, if need be.
919 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
921 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
922 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
923 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
924 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
925 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
927 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
929 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
930 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
932 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
934 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
935 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
937 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
939 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
940 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
942 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
944 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
945 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
946 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
947 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
950 =item Can't use subscript on %s
952 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
953 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
954 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
956 =item Can't x= to read-only value
958 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
959 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
960 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
962 =item Cannot find an opnumber for "%s"
964 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
965 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
967 =item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
969 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
970 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
971 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
973 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
975 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
976 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
977 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
978 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
979 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
981 =item Character class syntax [: :] is reserved for future extensions
983 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
984 with "[:" and ending with ":]" is reserved for future extensions.
985 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
986 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
987 backslash: "\[:" and ":\]".
989 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
991 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
992 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
993 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
994 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
995 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
997 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
999 (W) A novice will sometimes say
1001 chmod 777, $filename
1003 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1004 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1006 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1008 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1010 =item Compilation failed in require
1012 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1013 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1014 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1016 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1018 (W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1019 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1020 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1021 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1022 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1023 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1024 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1025 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1026 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1028 =item connect() on closed fd
1030 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1031 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1033 =item Constant is not %s reference
1035 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1036 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1037 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1038 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1039 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1041 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1043 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1044 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1047 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1049 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1050 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1053 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1055 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1057 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1059 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1061 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1063 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1064 expression compiler gave it.
1066 =item corrupted regexp program
1068 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1069 a valid magic number.
1071 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1073 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1074 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1075 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1076 case it indicates something else.
1078 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1080 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1081 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1082 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1084 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1086 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1088 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1090 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1091 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1095 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1096 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1098 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1100 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1101 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1102 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1103 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1104 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1105 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1106 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1107 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1110 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1112 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1114 =item do_study: out of memory
1116 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1118 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1120 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1123 =item elseif should be elsif
1125 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1126 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1127 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1128 unlikely to be what you want.
1130 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
1132 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1133 The interpreter is immediately exited.
1135 =item entering effective %s failed
1137 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1138 effective uids or gids failed.
1140 =item Error converting file specification %s
1142 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1143 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1144 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1145 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1146 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1148 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1150 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1151 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1152 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1154 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1156 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1157 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1158 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1160 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1162 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1163 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1164 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1165 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1166 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1167 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1169 =item Excessively long <> operator
1171 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1172 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1173 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1174 variable and glob that.
1176 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1178 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1180 =item Exiting eval via %s
1182 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1183 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1185 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1187 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1188 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1189 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1191 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1193 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1194 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1196 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1198 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1199 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1201 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1203 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1204 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1205 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1206 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1208 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1210 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1211 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1212 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1213 the Perl source code is distressed.
1215 =item fcntl is not implemented
1217 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1218 PDP-11 or something?
1220 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1222 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1223 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1224 the FileHandle package.
1226 =item Filehandle %s opened for only input
1228 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1229 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1230 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1231 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1234 =item Filehandle opened for only input
1236 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1237 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1238 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1239 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1242 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1244 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1245 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1246 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1249 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1251 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1252 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1253 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1256 =item Format %s redefined
1258 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1262 eval "format NAME =...";
1265 =item Format not terminated
1267 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1268 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1270 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1280 (or something like that).
1282 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1284 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1286 =item gethostent not implemented
1288 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1289 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1292 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1294 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1295 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1297 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1299 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1300 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1302 =item Glob not terminated
1304 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1305 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1306 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1307 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1309 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1311 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1312 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1313 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1315 =item goto must have label
1317 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1318 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1320 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1322 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1323 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1324 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1326 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1328 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1329 is now heavily deprecated.
1331 =item Identifier too long
1333 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1334 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1335 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1336 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1338 =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
1340 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
1341 to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
1342 names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
1343 appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
1344 might directly modify logical name tables and introduce nonstandard names,
1345 or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
1347 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1349 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1350 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1351 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1353 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1354 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1355 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1356 properly converting the text file format.
1358 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1359 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1360 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1362 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1363 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1366 =item Illegal division by zero
1368 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1369 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1371 =item Illegal modulus zero
1373 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1374 don't take to this kindly.
1376 =item Illegal octal digit
1378 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1380 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
1382 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1383 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1385 =item Illegal hex digit ignored
1387 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F in a
1388 hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1389 before the illegal character.
1391 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1393 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1394 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1396 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1398 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1399 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1400 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1401 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1402 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1403 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1404 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1406 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1408 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1409 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1410 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1411 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1412 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1413 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1414 for more information.
1416 =item Insecure directory in %s
1418 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1419 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1422 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1424 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1425 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1426 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1427 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1428 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1430 =item Integer overflow in hex number
1432 (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
1433 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
1436 =item Integer overflow in octal number
1438 (S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
1439 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
1442 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1444 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1445 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1446 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1447 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1448 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1449 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1450 and execute the specified command.
1452 =item internal disaster in regexp
1454 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1456 =item glob failed (%s)
1458 (W) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1459 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1460 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1461 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1462 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1463 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1464 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1465 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1466 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1467 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1470 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1472 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1474 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1476 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1477 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1479 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1481 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1482 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1484 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1486 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1487 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1490 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1492 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1493 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1496 =item ioctl is not implemented
1498 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1499 strange for a machine that supports C.
1501 =item junk on end of regexp
1503 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1505 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1507 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1508 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1509 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1511 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1513 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1514 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1517 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1519 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1520 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1523 =item leaving effective %s failed
1525 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1526 effective uids or gids failed.
1528 =item listen() on closed fd
1530 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1531 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1533 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1535 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1536 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1538 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1540 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1541 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1542 ended earlier on the current line.
1544 =item Misplaced _ in number
1546 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1548 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1550 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1551 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1552 one line to the next.
1554 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1556 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1557 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1559 =item Missing command in piped open
1561 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1562 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1564 =item Missing operator before %s?
1566 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1567 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1569 =item Missing right bracket
1571 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1572 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1575 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1577 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1578 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1579 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1581 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1584 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1586 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1588 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1589 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1592 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1594 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1595 be created for some peculiar reason.
1597 =item Module name must be constant
1599 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1601 =item msg%s not implemented
1603 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1605 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1607 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1608 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1610 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1612 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1613 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1614 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
1615 provided for just this purpose.
1617 =item Negative length
1619 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1620 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1622 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1624 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1625 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1627 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1628 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1632 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1633 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1635 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1637 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1638 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1639 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1642 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1644 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1646 =item No comma allowed after %s
1648 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1649 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1650 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1652 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1653 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1654 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1655 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1656 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1657 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1658 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1659 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1660 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1661 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1662 this error was triggered?
1664 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1666 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1667 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1668 want to pipe the output from this command.
1670 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1672 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1673 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1674 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1675 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1676 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1679 =item No dbm on this machine
1681 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1682 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1684 =item No DBsub routine
1686 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1687 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1688 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1689 ordinary subroutine call.
1691 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1693 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1694 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1695 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1697 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1699 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1700 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1701 from which to read data for stdin.
1703 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1705 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1706 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1707 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1709 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1711 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1712 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1713 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1715 =item No Perl script found in input
1717 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1718 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1720 =item No setregid available
1722 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1725 =item No setreuid available
1727 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1730 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1732 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1735 =item No such array field
1737 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
1738 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
1739 array indices for that to work.
1741 =item No such field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
1743 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
1744 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
1745 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
1746 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
1748 =item No such pipe open
1750 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1751 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1752 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1754 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1756 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1757 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1759 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
1761 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Per was unable to find the local
1762 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
1763 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
1764 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
1767 =item Not a CODE reference
1769 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1770 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1771 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1772 See also L<perlref>.
1774 =item Not a format reference
1776 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1777 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1779 =item Not a GLOB reference
1781 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1782 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1783 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1784 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1786 =item Not a HASH reference
1788 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1789 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1790 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1792 =item Not a perl script
1794 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1795 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1798 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1800 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1801 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1802 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1804 =item Not a subroutine reference
1806 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1807 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1808 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1809 See also L<perlref>.
1811 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1813 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1814 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1816 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1818 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1819 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1820 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1822 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1824 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1826 =item Not enough format arguments
1828 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1831 =item Null filename used
1833 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1834 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1836 =item Null picture in formline
1838 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1839 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1840 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1842 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1844 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1848 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1850 =item NULL regexp argument
1852 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1854 =item NULL regexp parameter
1856 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1858 =item Number too long
1860 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
1861 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
1862 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
1863 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
1865 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
1867 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
1868 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
1870 =item Offset outside string
1872 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1873 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1874 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1875 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1879 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1883 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1885 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
1887 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1888 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1889 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1890 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1891 true. See L<overload>.
1893 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1895 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1896 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1897 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1898 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1899 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1901 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1903 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1904 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1906 =item Out of memory during request for %s
1908 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1909 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1911 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1912 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1913 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1914 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
1915 error is trappable I<once>.
1917 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
1919 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1920 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1921 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1922 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1924 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
1926 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
1927 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
1928 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1932 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1935 =item panic: ck_grep
1937 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1939 =item panic: ck_split
1941 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1943 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1945 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1946 are in the savestack.
1950 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1951 it wasn't an eval context.
1953 =item panic: do_match
1955 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1957 =item panic: do_split
1959 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1961 =item panic: do_subst
1963 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1965 =item panic: do_trans
1967 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1971 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
1975 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1976 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1978 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1980 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1982 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1984 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1988 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1989 it wasn't a block context.
1991 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1993 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
1995 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1997 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1998 invalid enum on the top of it.
2002 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2004 =item panic: mapstart
2006 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2008 =item panic: null array
2010 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2012 =item panic: pad_alloc
2014 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2015 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2017 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2019 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2020 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2022 =item panic: pad_free po
2024 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2026 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2028 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2029 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2031 =item panic: pad_sv po
2033 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2035 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2037 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2038 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2040 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2042 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2044 =item panic: pp_iter
2046 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2048 =item panic: realloc
2050 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2052 =item panic: restartop
2054 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2055 didn't supply the destination.
2059 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2060 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2062 =item panic: scan_num
2064 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2066 =item panic: sv_insert
2068 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2071 =item panic: top_env
2073 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2077 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2079 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2081 (W) You said something like
2087 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2089 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2091 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2093 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2094 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2095 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2097 =item Permission denied
2099 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2101 =item pid %x not a child
2103 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2104 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2105 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2107 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2109 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2110 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2112 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2114 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2115 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2116 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2117 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2119 You probably wrote something like this:
2126 when you should have written this:
2133 If you really want comments, build your list the
2134 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2138 'b', # another comment
2141 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2143 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2144 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2145 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2148 You probably wrote something like this:
2152 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2153 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2157 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2159 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2160 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2161 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2162 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2164 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2166 (S) The old irregular construct
2170 is now misinterpreted as
2174 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2175 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2176 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2179 =item print on closed filehandle %s
2181 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2182 Check your logic flow.
2184 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
2186 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2187 Check your logic flow.
2189 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2191 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2192 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2193 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2197 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2199 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2200 or defined with a different function prototype.
2202 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2204 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2205 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2206 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2207 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2209 =item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
2211 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2212 Check your logic flow.
2214 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2216 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2218 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2220 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2221 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2222 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2224 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2226 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2227 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2229 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2231 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2232 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2234 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2236 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2237 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2238 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2239 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2241 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2242 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2243 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2244 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2246 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2248 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2249 reference count of other than 1.
2251 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2253 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2254 could match an empty string.
2256 =item regexp memory corruption
2258 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2259 expression compiler gave it.
2261 =item regexp out of space
2263 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2265 =item Reversed %s= operator
2267 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2268 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2270 =item Runaway format
2272 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2273 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2274 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2275 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2276 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2278 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2280 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2281 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2282 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2283 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2284 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2285 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2287 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2288 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2289 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2292 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2294 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2295 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2296 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2297 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2298 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2299 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2301 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2302 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2303 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2306 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2308 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2309 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2311 =item Search pattern not terminated
2313 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2314 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2315 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2317 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2319 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2320 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2322 =item select not implemented
2324 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2326 =item sem%s not implemented
2328 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2330 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2332 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2333 that had previously been marked as free.
2335 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2337 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2338 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2340 =item Send on closed socket
2342 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2343 Check your logic flow.
2345 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2347 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2350 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2352 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2353 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2355 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2357 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2358 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2360 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2362 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2367 Also known as "500 Server error".
2369 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2371 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2372 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2373 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2374 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2375 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2376 for more information:
2378 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/idiots-guide.html
2379 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/perl-cgi-faq.html
2380 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2381 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2382 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2384 =item setegid() not implemented
2386 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2387 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2390 =item seteuid() not implemented
2392 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2393 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2396 =item setrgid() not implemented
2398 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2399 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2402 =item setruid() not implemented
2404 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2405 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2408 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2410 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2411 because the world might have written on it already.
2413 =item shm%s not implemented
2415 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2417 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2419 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2421 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2423 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2424 put it into the wrong package?
2426 =item sort is now a reserved word
2428 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2429 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2431 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2433 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2434 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2435 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2437 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2439 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2440 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2444 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2445 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2446 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2448 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2450 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2451 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2453 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2455 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2456 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2457 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2458 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2461 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2463 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2464 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2465 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2466 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2467 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2469 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2471 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2472 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2475 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2477 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2481 eval "sub name { ... }";
2484 =item Substitution loop
2486 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2487 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2488 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2489 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2491 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2493 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2494 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2495 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2497 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2499 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2500 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2501 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2503 =item substr outside of string
2505 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2506 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2507 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2508 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2509 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2511 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2513 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2514 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2516 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2518 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2519 real and effective uids or gids.
2523 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2525 A keyword is misspelled.
2526 A semicolon is missing.
2528 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2529 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2530 A closing quote is missing.
2532 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2533 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2534 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2535 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2536 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2537 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2538 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2539 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2540 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2542 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2544 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2545 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2548 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2550 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2551 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2552 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2553 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2555 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2557 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2558 Check your logic flow.
2560 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2562 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2563 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2565 =item tell() on unopened file
2567 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2568 never opened or has since been closed.
2570 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2572 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2573 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2575 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2577 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2578 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2587 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2588 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2590 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2592 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2593 to the probings of Configure.
2595 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2597 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2598 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2599 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2600 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2603 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2605 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2606 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2607 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2609 =item times not implemented
2611 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2612 you're not running on Unix.
2614 =item Too few args to syscall
2616 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2617 system call to call, silly dilly.
2619 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2621 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2622 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2623 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2624 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2627 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2628 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2629 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2630 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2632 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2633 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2635 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2637 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2638 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2639 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2645 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2646 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2649 =item Too many args to syscall
2651 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2653 =item Too many arguments for %s
2655 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2657 =item trailing \ in regexp
2659 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2662 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
2664 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2665 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
2666 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
2668 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
2670 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2673 =item truncate not implemented
2675 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2676 Configure knows about.
2678 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2680 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2681 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2682 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2683 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2685 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2687 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
2688 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2690 =item umask not implemented
2692 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
2693 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
2695 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2697 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2699 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2701 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2702 contexts were entered and left.
2704 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2706 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2707 values were temporarily localized.
2709 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2711 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2712 were entered and left.
2714 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2716 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2717 scalars were allocated and freed.
2719 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2721 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2722 another package? See L<perlform>.
2724 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2726 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2727 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2729 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2731 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2732 has since been undefined.
2734 =item Undefined subroutine called
2736 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2737 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2739 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2741 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2742 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2744 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2746 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2747 another package? See L<perlform>.
2749 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
2751 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
2752 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
2754 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2756 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2757 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2759 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2761 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2763 =item unmatched () in regexp
2765 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2766 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2767 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2769 =item Unmatched right bracket
2771 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2772 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2773 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2776 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2778 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2779 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2782 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2784 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2785 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2786 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2788 =item Unrecognized character %s
2790 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
2791 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
2792 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
2794 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
2796 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
2799 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2801 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2802 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2804 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
2806 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2807 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2808 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2810 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2812 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2813 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2814 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
2816 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2818 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2820 =item Unsupported function fork
2822 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
2824 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
2825 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
2826 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
2828 =item Unsupported function %s
2830 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2831 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2833 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2835 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2836 least that's what Configure thought.
2838 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
2840 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2841 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2842 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2843 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2845 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2847 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
2848 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2850 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2852 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
2853 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2854 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2855 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2857 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2859 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2860 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2862 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
2864 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2865 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
2867 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2869 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2870 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2871 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2873 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
2875 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
2876 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
2877 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
2878 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
2880 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
2881 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
2882 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
2883 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
2884 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
2886 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
2887 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
2888 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
2889 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
2891 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
2892 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
2893 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
2895 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
2897 (D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
2898 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
2899 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
2900 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
2901 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
2902 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
2904 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2906 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2907 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2910 =item Use of uninitialized value
2912 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2913 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2914 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2916 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
2918 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
2920 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2922 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2923 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2924 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2925 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2926 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2927 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2931 when you meant to say
2933 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2935 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2936 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2941 when you should have said
2945 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2946 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2947 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2948 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2949 L<perlref> for more on this.
2951 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
2953 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
2954 valid when C<untie> was called.
2956 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
2958 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
2959 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
2960 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
2961 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
2962 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
2964 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
2966 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2967 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2968 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2969 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2970 on the front of your variable.
2972 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
2974 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
2975 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
2976 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
2977 the outermost subroutine. For example:
2979 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
2981 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
2982 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
2983 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
2984 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
2985 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
2986 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
2989 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
2990 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
2991 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
2992 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
2994 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
2996 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
2997 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
2999 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3000 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3001 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3002 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3003 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3004 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3006 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3007 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3008 will I<never> share the given variable.
3010 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3011 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3012 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3013 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3016 =item Variable syntax
3018 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3019 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3022 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3024 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3026 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3027 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3030 are supported and installed on your system.
3031 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3033 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3034 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3035 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3036 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3037 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3038 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3039 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3040 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3041 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3043 =item Warning: something's wrong
3045 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3046 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3048 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3050 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3051 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3053 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3055 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3056 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3057 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3058 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3062 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3066 but in actual fact, you got
3070 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3072 =item Write on closed filehandle
3074 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3075 Check your logic flow.
3077 =item X outside of string
3079 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3080 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3082 =item x outside of string
3084 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3085 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3087 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3089 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3091 =item Xsub called in sort
3093 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3095 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3097 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3098 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3099 Use a filename instead.
3101 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3103 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3104 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3105 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3106 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3108 =item You need to quote "%s"
3110 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3111 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3112 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3113 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3115 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
3117 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3118 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3119 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
3121 =item \1 better written as $1
3123 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3124 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3125 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3126 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3127 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3129 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3131 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3132 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3133 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3135 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3137 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3138 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3139 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3140 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3143 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3150 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3152 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3153 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3155 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3157 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3165 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3166 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3167 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3168 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3170 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3172 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3173 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3175 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3177 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3178 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3179 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3180 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"