3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above (W,
19 D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
39 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
40 Since the messages are listed in alphabetical order, the symbols
41 C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
45 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
47 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
48 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
49 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
50 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
53 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
55 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try that
58 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
60 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
61 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
62 if you want to localize a package variable.
64 =item "no" not allowed in expression
66 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
67 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
69 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
71 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before in the
72 current lexical scope.
74 =item "use" not allowed in expression
76 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
77 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
79 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
81 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
84 =item / cannot take a count
86 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
87 but you have also specified an explicit size for the string.
90 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
92 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
93 which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z
94 to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked.
97 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
99 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
100 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*.
101 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
103 =item / must follow a numeric type
105 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#',
106 but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.
107 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
109 =item % may only be used in unpack
111 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
112 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
113 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
115 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
117 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
118 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
119 C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood literally.
121 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
123 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
124 by Perl inside character classes. The character was understood literally.
126 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
128 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
129 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true
130 or false result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string,
131 which is probably not what you had in mind.
133 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
135 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
136 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
137 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
139 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
141 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a
142 definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call
143 conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype
144 declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine
145 definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively,
146 if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put
147 an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L<perlsub>.
149 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
151 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
156 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
158 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element, such as:
163 or a hash or array slice, such as:
165 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
166 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
168 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
170 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
171 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
173 =item %s did not return a true value
175 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
176 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
177 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
178 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
180 =item %s found where operator expected
182 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
183 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
184 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
185 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
187 =item %s had compilation errors
189 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
191 =item %s has too many errors
193 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
194 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
196 =item %s matches null string many times
198 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
199 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
201 =item %s never introduced
203 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
204 before it could possibly have been used.
206 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
208 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a package-specific handler.
209 That name might have a meaning to Perl itself some day, even though it
210 doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a mixed-case attribute name, instead.
215 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
217 =item %s: Command not found
219 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
220 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
223 =item %s: Expression syntax
225 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
226 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
229 =item %s: Undefined variable
231 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
232 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
237 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
238 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
241 =item (in cleanup) %s
243 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
244 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
245 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
246 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
247 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
250 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
251 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
253 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
255 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
256 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
257 the previous line just because you saw this message.
259 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
261 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
262 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
264 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
266 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
267 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
269 =item C<-p> destination: %s
271 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
272 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
273 redirected it with select().)
275 =item 500 Server error
279 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
281 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
282 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
284 =item @ outside of string
286 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
287 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
289 =item <> should be quotes
291 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
294 =item accept() on closed socket %s
296 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
297 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
299 =item Allocation too large: %lx
301 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
303 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
305 (W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
306 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
307 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
308 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
309 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
310 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
312 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
314 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
316 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
318 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
319 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
320 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
322 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
324 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
325 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
326 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
329 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
330 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
331 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
332 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
334 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
335 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
336 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">
339 =item Args must match #! line
341 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
342 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
343 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
344 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
346 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
348 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
349 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
350 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
352 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
354 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
355 is now heavily deprecated.
357 =item assertion botched: %s
359 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
361 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
363 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
365 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
367 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
368 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
369 know which context to supply to the right side.
371 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
373 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
374 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
377 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
379 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
380 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
381 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
382 that can no longer be found in the table.
384 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
386 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
387 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
388 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
389 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
392 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
394 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
396 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
398 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
399 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
400 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
401 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
402 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
403 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
405 =item Attempt to join self
407 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
408 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
409 need to move the join() to some other thread.
411 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
413 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
414 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
415 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
416 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
417 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
420 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
422 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
423 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
424 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
426 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
428 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
429 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
430 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
431 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
433 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
435 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
436 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
437 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
439 =item Bad filehandle: %s
441 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
442 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
443 did it in another package.
445 =item Bad free() ignored
447 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
448 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
449 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
451 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
452 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
453 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
458 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
460 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
462 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
463 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
466 =item Bad name after %s::
468 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
469 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
478 $sym = "mypack::$var";
480 =item Bad realloc() ignored
482 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had never been
483 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
484 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
486 =item Bad symbol for array
488 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
489 wasn't a symbol table entry.
491 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
493 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
494 wasn't a symbol table entry.
496 =item Bad symbol for hash
498 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
499 wasn't a symbol table entry.
501 =item Badly placed ()'s
503 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
504 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
507 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
509 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
510 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
511 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
513 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
515 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
516 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
517 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
519 =item Bareword found in conditional
521 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
522 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
523 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
527 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted
530 use constant TYPO => 1;
531 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
533 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
535 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
537 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
538 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
540 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
542 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
543 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
544 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
545 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
546 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
548 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
550 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
551 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
552 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
554 =item bind() on closed socket %s
556 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
557 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
559 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
561 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
563 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
565 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
567 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
569 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
570 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
571 so it was truncated to the string shown.
573 =item Callback called exit
575 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
576 exited by calling exit.
578 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
580 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
581 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
582 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
583 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
585 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
587 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
588 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
590 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
592 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
593 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
594 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
595 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep().
596 You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect though,
597 because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once.
598 See L<perlfunc/last>.
600 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
602 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
603 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
604 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
605 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
606 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
607 loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
609 =item Can't read CRTL environ
611 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
612 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
613 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
614 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
616 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
618 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
619 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
620 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
621 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
622 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
623 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
625 =item Can't bless non-reference value
627 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
628 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
630 =item Can't break at that line
632 (S internal) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
633 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
636 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
638 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
639 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
640 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
642 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
644 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
645 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
646 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
647 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
649 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
651 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
652 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
653 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
654 Something like this will reproduce the error:
657 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
658 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
660 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
662 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
663 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
664 Something like this will reproduce the error:
667 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
668 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
670 =item Can't chdir to %s
672 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
673 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
675 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
677 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
679 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
681 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
682 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
692 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
694 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
696 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
697 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
699 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
701 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
702 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
704 =item Can't coerce array into hash
706 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
707 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
708 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
710 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
712 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
713 or other plumbing problems.
715 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
717 (S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
718 qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
719 for other types of variables in future.
721 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
723 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
724 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
726 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
728 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
730 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
732 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
733 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
736 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
738 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
739 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
740 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
742 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
744 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
745 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
747 =item Can't do setegid!
749 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
752 =item Can't do seteuid!
754 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
756 =item Can't do setuid
758 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
759 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
760 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
761 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
762 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
763 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
765 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
767 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
768 without flags is emulated.
770 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m
772 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
773 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
775 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
777 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
778 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
780 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
782 (W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
783 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
784 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
785 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
786 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
787 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
791 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
792 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
793 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
795 =item Can't execute %s
797 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
798 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
800 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
802 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
803 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
804 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
806 =item Can't find %s on PATH
808 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
811 =item Can't find label %s
813 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
814 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
816 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
818 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
819 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
820 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
822 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
824 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
825 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
826 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
830 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
832 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
834 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
835 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
836 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
837 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
838 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
839 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
840 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
841 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
842 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
843 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
844 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
845 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
846 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
847 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
849 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
851 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
852 can't retrieve its name for later use.
854 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
856 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
857 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
859 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
861 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
862 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
863 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
866 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
868 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
869 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
871 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
873 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD signal
874 (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this signal
875 will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
876 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value.
877 This situation typically indicates that the parent program under
878 which Perl may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
880 =item Can't localize through a reference
882 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
883 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
884 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
885 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
887 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
889 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
890 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
891 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
894 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
896 (F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is
897 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
898 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
899 element directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
901 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
903 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
904 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
905 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
906 doing C<make install>.
908 =item Can't locate %s
910 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
911 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
912 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
913 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra
914 library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or
915 maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>
918 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
920 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
921 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
922 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
924 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
926 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
929 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
931 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
933 =item Can't modify %s in %s
935 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
936 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
938 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
940 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
941 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
943 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
945 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
948 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
950 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
953 =item Can't open %s: %s
955 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
956 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
957 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
958 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
961 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
963 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
964 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
965 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using ">",
966 and then read it in under a different file handle.
968 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
970 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
971 couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on the
972 command line for writing.
974 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
976 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
977 couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the command line for reading.
979 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
981 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
982 couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on the command
985 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
987 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
988 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
990 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
992 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
994 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
996 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
997 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
998 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
999 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
1001 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1003 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup file. Perl
1004 was unable to remove the original file to replace it with the modified
1005 file. The file was left unmodified.
1007 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1009 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1010 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1012 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1014 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
1015 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1017 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
1019 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
1022 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1024 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1025 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1027 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1029 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such
1030 as temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue.
1031 This is not allowed.
1033 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1035 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
1036 it open already. Bizarre.
1038 =item Can't swap uid and euid
1040 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
1043 =item Can't take log of %g
1045 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1046 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1047 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
1048 the negative numbers.
1050 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1052 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1053 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1054 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1056 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1058 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1059 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1060 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1064 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1065 as the main Perl stack.
1067 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
1069 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
1070 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
1071 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
1072 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1074 =item Can't upgrade to undef
1076 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
1077 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
1078 code calling sv_upgrade.
1080 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
1082 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1083 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1084 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1086 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1088 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1089 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1090 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1091 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1094 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1096 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
1098 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1100 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1101 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1102 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1104 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1106 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
1107 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
1108 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
1109 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
1110 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
1112 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1114 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1115 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1117 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1119 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1120 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1122 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1124 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1125 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1127 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1129 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
1130 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
1131 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
1132 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1135 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1137 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1138 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1139 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1141 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1143 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1144 references can be weakened.
1146 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1148 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
1149 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1150 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1152 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
1154 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
1155 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
1157 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1159 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1160 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1161 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1163 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1165 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
1168 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1170 (W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1171 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
1172 for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .]
1173 are not currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for
1176 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1178 (W regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
1179 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
1180 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1181 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1182 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1184 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1186 (W regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1187 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
1188 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1189 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1190 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1192 =item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
1194 (W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
1196 chmod 777, $filename
1198 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1199 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1201 =item Close on unopened file <%s>
1203 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1205 =item Compilation failed in require
1207 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1208 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1209 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1211 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1213 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1214 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1215 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1216 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1217 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1218 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1219 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1220 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1221 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1223 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1225 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1226 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1228 =item Constant is not %s reference
1230 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1231 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1232 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1233 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1234 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1236 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1238 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1239 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1242 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1244 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1245 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1248 =item constant(%s): %s
1250 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define an
1251 overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name specified
1252 in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
1253 C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and L<overload>.
1255 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1257 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1259 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1261 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1263 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1265 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1267 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1269 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1270 expression compiler gave it.
1272 =item corrupted regexp program
1274 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1275 a valid magic number.
1277 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1279 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1280 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1281 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1282 case it indicates something else.
1284 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1286 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
1287 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
1288 just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1290 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1292 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
1293 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
1294 just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1296 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1298 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label
1299 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1300 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1302 =item Did not produce a valid header
1306 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1308 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1310 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1312 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global variable.
1313 You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which seems superfluous.
1315 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1317 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1318 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1322 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1323 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1325 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1327 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1328 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1329 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1330 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1331 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1332 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1333 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1334 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1337 =item Document contains no data
1341 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1343 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1345 =item do_study: out of memory
1347 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1349 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1351 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1354 =item elseif should be elsif
1356 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1357 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1358 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1359 unlikely to be what you want.
1361 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1363 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1364 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1365 routines has been prematurely ended.
1367 =item entering effective %s failed
1369 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1370 effective uids or gids failed.
1372 =item Error converting file specification %s
1374 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1375 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1376 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1377 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1378 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1380 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1382 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1383 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1384 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1386 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1388 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1389 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1390 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1392 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1394 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1395 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1396 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1397 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1398 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1399 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1401 =item Excessively long <> operator
1403 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1404 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1405 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1406 variable and glob that.
1408 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1410 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1412 =item Exiting eval via %s
1414 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1415 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1417 =item Exiting format via %s
1419 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1420 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1422 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1424 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1425 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1426 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1428 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1430 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1431 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1433 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1435 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1436 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1438 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1440 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1441 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1442 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1443 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1445 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1447 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal character, not
1448 another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-" in your false
1449 range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the "-", "\-".
1452 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1454 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1455 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1456 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1457 the Perl source code is distressed.
1459 =item fcntl is not implemented
1461 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1462 PDP-11 or something?
1464 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1466 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1467 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1468 the FileHandle package.
1470 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1472 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1473 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1474 "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If
1475 you intended only to write the file, use ">" or ">>". See
1478 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1480 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
1481 intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1482 "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If
1483 you intended only to read from the file, use "<". See
1486 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1488 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1489 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1490 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1493 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1495 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1496 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1497 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1500 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1502 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed some
1503 time before now. Check your logic flow. flock() operates on filehandles.
1504 Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the same name?
1506 =item Format %s redefined
1508 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1512 eval "format NAME =...";
1515 =item Format not terminated
1517 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1518 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1520 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1530 (or something like that).
1532 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1534 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1536 =item gethostent not implemented
1538 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1539 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1542 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1544 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1545 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1547 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1549 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1550 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1552 =item glob failed (%s)
1554 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1555 and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1556 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1557 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1558 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1559 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1560 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1561 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1562 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1563 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1566 =item Glob not terminated
1568 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1569 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1570 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1571 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1573 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1575 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1576 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1577 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1580 =item goto must have label
1582 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1583 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1585 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1587 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1588 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1589 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1591 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1593 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1594 is now heavily deprecated.
1596 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1598 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1599 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1600 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1602 =item Identifier too long
1604 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1605 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1606 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1607 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1609 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1611 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1612 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1613 used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1615 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1617 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1618 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1619 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1622 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1624 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1625 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this
1626 error when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason,
1627 your version of Perl appears to have been built without this support.
1628 Talk to your Perl administrator.
1630 =item Illegal division by zero
1632 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1633 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1635 =item Illegal modulus zero
1637 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1638 don't take to this kindly.
1640 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1642 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1644 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1646 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1648 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1650 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1651 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1653 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1655 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1656 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1658 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1660 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f
1661 in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1662 before the illegal character.
1664 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1666 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1667 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1669 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1671 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1672 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1674 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1676 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1677 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1678 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1679 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1680 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1681 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1682 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1684 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1686 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1687 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1688 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1689 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1690 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1691 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1692 for more information.
1694 =item Insecure directory in %s
1696 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1697 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1700 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1702 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1703 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1704 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1705 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1706 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1708 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1710 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either
1711 as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for your
1712 architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a
1713 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1714 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1715 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1716 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1717 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1720 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1722 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1723 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1724 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1725 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1726 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1727 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1728 and execute the specified command.
1730 =item internal disaster in regexp
1732 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1734 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1736 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1738 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1740 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1741 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1743 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1745 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not recognized
1746 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1748 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1750 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1751 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1753 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1755 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1756 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1758 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1760 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1761 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute
1762 had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated
1763 too soon. See L<attributes>.
1765 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1767 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1768 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1771 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1773 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1774 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1777 =item ioctl is not implemented
1779 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1780 strange for a machine that supports C.
1782 =item junk on end of regexp
1784 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1786 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1788 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1789 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1790 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1792 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1794 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1795 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1798 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1800 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1801 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1804 =item leaving effective %s failed
1806 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1807 effective uids or gids failed.
1809 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1811 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1812 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1814 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1816 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1817 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context.
1818 See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1820 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1822 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1823 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1825 =item Method %s not permitted
1829 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1831 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1832 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1833 ended earlier on the current line.
1835 =item Misplaced _ in number
1837 (W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1839 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1841 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1842 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1843 one line to the next.
1845 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1847 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1848 double-quotish context.
1850 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1852 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1853 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1855 =item Missing command in piped open
1857 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1858 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1860 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
1862 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1863 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1865 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1867 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than
1868 closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place
1869 you were last editing.
1871 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1873 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1874 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1875 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1877 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1880 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1882 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1884 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1885 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1888 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1890 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1891 be created for some peculiar reason.
1893 =item Module name must be constant
1895 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1897 =item msg%s not implemented
1899 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1901 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1903 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1904 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1906 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1908 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that they
1909 have a name with which they can be found.
1911 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1913 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1914 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1915 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1916 provided for this purpose.
1918 =item Negative length
1920 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1921 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1923 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1925 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1926 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1928 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1929 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1933 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1934 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1936 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1938 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1939 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1940 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1943 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1945 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1947 =item No %s specified for -%c
1949 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
1950 you haven't specified one.
1952 =item No comma allowed after %s
1954 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1955 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1956 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1958 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1959 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1960 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1961 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1962 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1963 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1964 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1965 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1966 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1967 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1968 this error was triggered?
1970 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1972 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1973 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1974 want to pipe the output from this command.
1976 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1978 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1979 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1980 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1981 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1982 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1985 =item No dbm on this machine
1987 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1988 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1990 =item No DBsub routine
1992 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1993 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1994 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1995 ordinary subroutine call.
1997 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
1999 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
2000 and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't find
2001 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2003 =item No input file after < on command line
2005 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
2006 and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
2007 from which to read data for stdin.
2009 =item No output file after > on command line
2011 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
2012 and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
2013 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2015 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2017 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
2018 and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't find the
2019 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2021 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2023 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our" declarations,
2024 because that doesn't make much sense under existing semantics. Such
2025 syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2027 =item No Perl script found in input
2029 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2030 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2032 =item No setregid available
2034 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2037 =item No setreuid available
2039 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2042 =item No space allowed after -%c
2044 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow immediately
2045 after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2047 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2049 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2050 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2051 array indices for that to work.
2053 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2055 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
2056 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
2057 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
2058 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2060 =item No such pipe open
2062 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2063 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
2064 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2066 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2068 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
2069 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2071 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2073 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2074 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2075 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
2076 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
2079 =item Not a CODE reference
2081 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2082 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2083 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2084 See also L<perlref>.
2086 =item Not a format reference
2088 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2089 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2091 =item Not a GLOB reference
2093 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
2094 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2095 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
2096 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2098 =item Not a HASH reference
2100 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
2101 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2102 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2104 =item Not a perl script
2106 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2107 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2110 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2112 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
2113 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2114 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2116 =item Not a subroutine reference
2118 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2119 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2120 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2121 See also L<perlref>.
2123 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2125 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2126 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2128 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2130 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
2131 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2132 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2134 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2136 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2138 =item Not enough format arguments
2140 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
2143 =item Null filename used
2145 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
2146 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2148 =item Null picture in formline
2150 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2151 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2152 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2154 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2156 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
2160 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2162 =item NULL regexp argument
2164 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2166 =item NULL regexp parameter
2168 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2170 =item Number too long
2172 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
2173 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
2174 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
2175 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
2177 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2179 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295)
2180 and therefore non-portable between systems. See L<perlport> for more
2181 on portability concerns.
2183 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2185 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2187 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors. The
2188 octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a future
2191 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2193 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
2194 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2196 =item Offset outside string
2198 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2199 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
2200 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
2201 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2205 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2209 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2211 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2213 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
2214 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
2215 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
2216 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
2217 true. See L<overload>.
2219 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2221 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
2222 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
2223 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
2224 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
2225 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
2227 =item Out of memory!
2229 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2230 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl
2231 has no option but to exit immediately.
2233 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2235 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
2236 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
2238 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2240 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2241 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
2243 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2244 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2245 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
2246 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
2247 error is trappable I<once>.
2249 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2251 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2252 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2253 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
2254 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2256 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2258 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2259 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
2260 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2264 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
2267 =item panic: ck_grep
2269 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2271 =item panic: ck_split
2273 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2275 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2277 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
2278 are in the savestack.
2280 =item panic: del_backref
2282 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2287 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2288 it wasn't an eval context.
2290 =item panic: do_match
2292 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2294 =item panic: do_split
2296 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2298 =item panic: do_subst
2300 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2302 =item panic: do_trans
2304 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2308 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2312 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2313 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2315 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2317 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2319 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2321 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2323 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2325 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2329 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2330 it wasn't a block context.
2332 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2334 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
2336 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2338 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2339 invalid enum on the top of it.
2343 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2345 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2347 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2348 references to an object.
2350 =item panic: mapstart
2352 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2354 =item panic: null array
2356 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2358 =item panic: pad_alloc
2360 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2361 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2363 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2365 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2366 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2368 =item panic: pad_free po
2370 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2372 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2374 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2375 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2377 =item panic: pad_sv po
2379 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2381 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2383 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2384 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2386 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2388 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2390 =item panic: pp_iter
2392 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2394 =item panic: realloc
2396 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2398 =item panic: restartop
2400 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2401 didn't supply the destination.
2405 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2406 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2408 =item panic: scan_num
2410 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2412 =item panic: sv_insert
2414 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2417 =item panic: top_env
2419 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2423 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2427 (P) An internal error.
2429 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2431 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2437 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2439 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2441 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2443 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2444 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2445 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2447 =item Permission denied
2449 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2451 =item pid %x not a child
2453 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2454 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2455 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2457 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2459 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2460 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2462 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2464 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2465 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2467 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2469 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2470 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2471 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2472 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2474 You probably wrote something like this:
2481 when you should have written this:
2488 If you really want comments, build your list the
2489 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2493 'b', # another comment
2496 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2498 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2499 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2500 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2503 You probably wrote something like this:
2507 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2508 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2512 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2514 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2515 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2516 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2517 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2519 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2521 (W deprecated) You have written something like this:
2525 use attrs qw(locked);
2528 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2534 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2535 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2537 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2539 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2543 is now misinterpreted as
2547 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2548 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2549 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2552 =item Premature end of script headers
2556 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2558 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2559 Check your logic flow.
2561 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2563 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2564 Check your logic flow.
2566 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2568 (S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2569 or defined with a different function prototype.
2571 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2573 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2574 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2575 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2576 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2578 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2580 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2581 Check your logic flow.
2583 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2585 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had already
2588 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2590 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2592 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2594 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2595 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2596 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2598 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2600 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2601 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2603 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2605 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2606 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2608 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2610 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2611 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2612 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2613 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2615 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2616 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2617 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2618 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2620 =item Reference is already weak
2622 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2623 Doing so has no effect.
2625 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2627 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2628 reference count of other than 1.
2630 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2632 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2633 could match an empty string.
2635 =item regexp memory corruption
2637 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2638 expression compiler gave it.
2640 =item regexp out of space
2642 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2644 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
2646 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
2647 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2649 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2651 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
2652 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2654 =item Reversed %s= operator
2656 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2657 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2659 =item Runaway format
2661 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2662 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2663 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2664 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2665 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2667 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2669 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2670 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2671 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2672 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2673 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2674 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2676 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2677 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2678 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2681 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2683 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2684 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2685 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2686 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2687 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2688 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2690 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2691 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2692 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2695 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2697 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2698 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2700 =item Search pattern not terminated
2702 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2703 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2704 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2706 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2708 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2709 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2711 =item select not implemented
2713 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2715 =item sem%s not implemented
2717 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2719 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2721 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2722 that had previously been marked as free.
2724 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2726 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2727 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2729 =item send() on closed socket %s
2731 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2732 Check your logic flow.
2734 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2736 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2739 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2741 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2742 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2744 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2746 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2747 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2749 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2751 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2756 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
2757 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error
2758 text varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen
2759 variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted",
2760 "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and
2761 "Did not produce a valid header".
2763 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2765 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2766 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2767 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2768 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2769 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2770 for more information:
2772 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2773 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2774 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2775 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2776 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2778 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2780 =item setegid() not implemented
2782 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2783 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2786 =item seteuid() not implemented
2788 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't support
2789 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2792 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
2794 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no arguments,
2795 unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process group ID.
2797 =item setrgid() not implemented
2799 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2800 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2803 =item setruid() not implemented
2805 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't support
2806 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2809 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2811 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2812 because the world might have written on it already.
2814 =item shm%s not implemented
2816 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2818 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
2820 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2822 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2824 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2825 put it into the wrong package?
2827 =item sort is now a reserved word
2829 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2830 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2832 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2834 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2835 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2836 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2838 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2840 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2841 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2845 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2846 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2847 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2849 =item Stat on unopened file <%s>
2851 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2852 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2854 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2856 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2857 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2858 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2859 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2862 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2864 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2865 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2866 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2867 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2868 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2870 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2872 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2873 Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2876 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2878 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2882 eval "sub name { ... }";
2885 =item Substitution loop
2887 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2888 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2889 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2890 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2892 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2894 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2895 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2896 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2898 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2900 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2901 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2902 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2904 =item substr outside of string
2906 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2907 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2908 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2909 fatal if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2910 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2912 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2914 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2915 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2917 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2919 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2920 real and effective uids or gids.
2924 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2926 A keyword is misspelled.
2927 A semicolon is missing.
2929 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2930 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2931 A closing quote is missing.
2933 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2934 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2935 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2936 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2937 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2938 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2939 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2940 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2941 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2943 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2945 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2946 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2949 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2951 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2952 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2953 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2954 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2956 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
2958 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2959 Check your logic flow.
2961 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2963 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2964 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2966 =item tell() on unopened file
2968 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2969 never opened or has since been closed.
2971 =item Test on unopened file <%s>
2973 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2974 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2976 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2978 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2979 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2988 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2989 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2991 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2993 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2994 to the probings of Configure.
2996 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2998 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2999 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3000 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3001 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3004 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
3006 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
3007 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
3008 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
3010 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3012 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3014 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
3015 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
3016 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
3017 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
3018 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
3019 %ENV which produced the warning.
3021 =item times not implemented
3023 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
3024 you're not running on Unix.
3026 =item Too few args to syscall
3028 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3029 system call to call, silly dilly.
3031 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3033 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3034 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3035 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3036 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3039 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3040 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
3041 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
3042 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3044 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3045 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3047 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3049 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3050 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3051 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3053 =item Too late to run %s block
3055 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3056 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3057 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using
3058 C<use> instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do>
3059 inside a BEGIN block.
3065 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3066 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3069 =item Too many args to syscall
3071 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3073 =item Too many arguments for %s
3075 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3077 =item trailing \ in regexp
3079 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
3082 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3084 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3085 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3086 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3088 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3090 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3093 =item truncate not implemented
3095 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3096 Configure knows about.
3098 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3100 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3101 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3102 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3103 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3105 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3107 (W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3108 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3110 =item umask not implemented
3112 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
3113 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3115 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3117 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3119 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3121 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
3122 contexts were entered and left.
3124 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3126 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
3127 values were temporarily localized.
3129 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3131 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
3132 were entered and left.
3134 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3136 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
3137 scalars were allocated and freed.
3139 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3141 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3142 another package? See L<perlform>.
3144 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3146 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
3147 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3149 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3151 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
3152 has since been undefined.
3154 =item Undefined subroutine called
3156 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3157 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3159 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3161 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
3162 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3164 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3166 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3167 another package? See L<perlform>.
3169 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3171 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
3172 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
3174 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3176 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3177 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3179 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3181 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
3183 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3185 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3186 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3187 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3189 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3191 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3192 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3193 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3194 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3196 =item unmatched () in regexp
3198 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3199 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
3200 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3202 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3204 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than
3205 opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket.
3206 As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the
3207 place you were last editing.
3209 =item unmatched [] in regexp
3211 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3212 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
3215 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3217 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
3218 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
3219 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
3221 =item Unrecognized character %s
3223 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3224 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3225 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3227 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3229 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
3232 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3234 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
3235 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
3237 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3239 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
3240 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
3241 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
3243 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3245 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
3246 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
3247 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3249 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3251 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3253 =item Unsupported function fork
3255 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3257 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
3258 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
3259 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3261 =item Unsupported function %s
3263 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3264 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3266 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3268 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3269 least that's what Configure thought.
3271 =item Unterminated <> operator
3273 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3274 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
3275 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
3276 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3278 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3280 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing an
3281 attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3282 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3283 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3285 =item Unterminated attribute list
3287 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start
3288 of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3289 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute
3290 too soon. See L<attributes>.
3292 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3294 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
3295 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3297 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3299 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
3300 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
3301 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
3302 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3304 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3306 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3307 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3309 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3311 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
3312 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3314 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3316 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
3317 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
3318 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3320 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3322 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are
3323 looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines
3324 to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>),
3325 not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<< $obj->bar() >>).
3327 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
3328 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
3329 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
3330 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
3331 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
3333 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3334 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
3335 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
3336 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
3338 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
3339 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3340 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3342 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3344 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
3345 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
3346 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
3347 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
3348 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
3349 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3351 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3353 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
3354 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
3357 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3359 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
3360 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
3361 warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3363 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3365 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3367 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3369 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
3370 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
3371 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
3372 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
3373 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
3374 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
3378 when you meant to say
3380 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3382 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3383 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3388 when you should have said
3392 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3393 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3394 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3395 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3396 L<perlref> for more on this.
3398 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3400 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
3401 valid when C<untie> was called.
3403 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3405 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
3406 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
3407 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
3408 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
3409 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
3411 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3413 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3414 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3415 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3418 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3420 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
3421 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3422 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
3423 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
3424 on the front of your variable.
3426 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3428 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
3429 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
3430 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
3431 the outermost subroutine. For example:
3433 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3435 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3436 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
3437 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3438 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
3439 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
3440 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
3443 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
3444 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
3445 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
3446 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
3448 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3450 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
3451 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3453 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3454 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3455 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3456 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3457 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3458 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3460 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3461 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3462 will I<never> share the given variable.
3464 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3465 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3466 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3467 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3470 =item Variable syntax
3472 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3473 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3476 =item Version number must be a constant number
3478 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3479 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3482 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3484 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3486 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3487 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3490 are supported and installed on your system.
3491 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3493 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3494 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3495 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3496 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3497 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3498 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3499 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3500 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3501 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3503 =item Warning: something's wrong
3505 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3506 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3508 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3510 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3511 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3513 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3515 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3516 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3517 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3518 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3522 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3526 but in actual fact, you got
3530 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3532 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
3534 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3535 Check your logic flow.
3537 =item X outside of string
3539 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3540 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3542 =item x outside of string
3544 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3545 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3547 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3549 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3551 =item Xsub called in sort
3553 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3555 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3557 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3558 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3559 Use a filename instead.
3561 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3563 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3564 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3565 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3566 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3568 =item You need to quote "%s"
3570 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3571 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3572 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3573 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3575 =item %cetsockopt() on closed socket %s
3577 (W closed) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3578 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3579 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt> and L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3581 =item \1 better written as $1
3583 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3584 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3585 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3586 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3587 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3589 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
3591 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3592 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3593 '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3595 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
3597 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3598 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3599 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3600 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3603 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3610 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3612 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3613 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3615 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3617 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3625 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3626 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3627 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3628 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3630 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3632 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3633 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3635 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3637 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3638 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3639 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3640 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"