3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
141 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
143 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
149 or a hash or array slice, such as:
151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
154 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
156 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
157 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
162 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
166 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
168 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
169 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
170 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
171 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
172 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
173 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
175 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
177 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
178 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
180 =item assertion botched: %s
182 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
184 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
186 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
188 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
190 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
191 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
192 know which context to supply to the right side.
194 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
196 (W) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
197 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
198 Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
199 created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
200 thread. See L<threads>.
202 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
204 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
205 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
207 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
209 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
210 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
211 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
217 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
219 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
220 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
223 bless $self, "$proto";
225 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
227 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
228 which is not in its key set.
230 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
232 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
233 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
235 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
237 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
238 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
239 outside any of those arenas.
241 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
243 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
244 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
245 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
246 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
248 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
250 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
251 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
252 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
253 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
256 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
258 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
260 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
262 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
263 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
264 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
265 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
266 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
267 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
270 =item Attempt to join self
272 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
273 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
274 to move the join() to some other thread.
276 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
278 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
279 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
280 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
281 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
282 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
285 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
287 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
288 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
289 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
291 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
293 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
294 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
295 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
296 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
298 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
300 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
301 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
302 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
304 =item Bad filehandle: %s
306 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
307 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
308 open(), or did it in another package.
310 =item Bad free() ignored
312 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
313 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
314 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
316 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
317 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
318 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
322 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
324 =item Badly placed ()'s
326 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
327 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
330 =item Bad name after %s::
332 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
333 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
342 $sym = "mypack::$var";
344 =item Bad realloc() ignored
346 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
347 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
348 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
350 =item Bad symbol for array
352 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
353 wasn't a symbol table entry.
355 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
357 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
358 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
360 =item Bad symbol for hash
362 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
363 wasn't a symbol table entry.
365 =item Bareword found in conditional
367 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
368 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
369 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
373 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
376 use constant TYPO => 1;
377 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
379 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
381 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
383 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
384 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
385 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
387 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
389 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
390 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
391 you need to predeclare a package?
393 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
395 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
396 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
399 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
401 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
402 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
403 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
404 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
405 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
407 =item \1 better written as $1
409 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
410 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
411 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
412 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
413 there are more than 9 backreferences.
415 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
417 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
418 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
419 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
421 =item bind() on closed socket %s
423 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
424 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
426 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
428 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
429 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
431 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
433 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
435 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
437 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
440 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
442 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
443 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
444 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
446 =item Callback called exit
448 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
449 exited by calling exit.
451 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
453 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
454 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
455 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
456 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
457 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
458 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
459 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
460 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
462 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
464 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
465 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
466 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
467 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
469 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
471 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
472 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
474 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
476 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
477 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
478 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
480 =item Can't bless non-reference value
482 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
483 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
485 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
487 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
488 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
489 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
491 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
493 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
494 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
495 like this will reproduce the error:
498 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
499 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
501 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
503 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
504 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
505 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
506 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
508 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
510 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
511 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
512 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
513 Something like this will reproduce the error:
516 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
517 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
519 =item Can't chdir to %s
521 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
522 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
524 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
526 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
529 =item Can't coerce array into hash
531 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
532 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
533 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
535 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
537 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
538 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
548 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
550 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
552 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
553 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
555 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
557 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
558 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
560 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
562 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
563 quotas or other plumbing problems.
565 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
567 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
568 class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be
569 extended for other types of variables in future.
571 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
573 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
574 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
576 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
578 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
579 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
581 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
583 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
586 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
588 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
589 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
590 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
592 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
594 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
595 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
596 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
598 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
600 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
601 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
602 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
604 =item Can't do setegid!
606 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
609 =item Can't do seteuid!
611 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
613 =item Can't do setuid
615 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
616 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
617 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
618 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
619 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
620 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
622 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
624 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
625 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
627 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
629 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
630 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
633 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
635 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
636 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
637 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
638 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
640 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
642 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
643 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
644 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
645 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
646 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
647 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
652 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
653 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
654 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
656 =item Can't execute %s
658 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
659 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
661 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
663 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
664 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
666 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
668 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
669 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
670 (remember that the names of character properties consist only of
671 alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
673 =item Can't find label %s
675 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
676 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
678 =item Can't find %s on PATH
680 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
683 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
685 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
686 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
687 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
689 =item Can't find %s property definition %s
691 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
692 example C<\p{Lu}> is all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
693 Unicode property, see L<perlunicode> for the list of known properties.
694 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
695 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
698 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
700 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
701 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
702 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
704 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
706 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
707 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
708 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
712 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
715 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
717 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
718 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
719 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
720 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
721 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
722 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
723 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
724 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
725 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
726 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
727 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
728 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
729 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
730 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
731 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
733 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
735 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
736 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
738 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
740 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
741 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
743 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
745 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
746 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
748 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
750 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
751 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
752 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
753 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
755 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
757 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
760 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
762 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
763 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
764 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
765 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
767 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
769 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
770 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
771 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
772 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
773 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
774 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
776 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
778 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
779 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
780 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
781 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
782 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
783 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
786 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
788 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
789 may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
790 incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
791 between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
792 extension was built against an older version of the library that is
793 installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
796 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
798 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
799 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
800 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
803 =item Can't localize through a reference
805 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
806 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
807 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
808 that $ref will still be a reference.
810 =item Can't locate %s
812 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
813 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
814 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
815 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
816 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
817 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
818 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
820 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
822 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
823 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
824 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
825 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
827 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
829 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
830 for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
831 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
833 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
835 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
836 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
837 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
839 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
841 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
842 doesn't seem to exist.
844 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
846 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
847 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
849 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
851 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
854 =item Can't modify %s in %s
856 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
857 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
859 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
861 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
864 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
866 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
867 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
869 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
871 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
874 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
876 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
877 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
878 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
879 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
880 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
881 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
883 =item Can't open %s: %s
885 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
886 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
887 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
888 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
891 =item Can't open a reference
893 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
894 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
898 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
899 open is not supported.
901 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
903 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
904 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
905 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
906 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
908 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
910 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
911 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
912 the command line for writing.
914 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
916 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
917 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
918 command line for reading.
920 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
922 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
923 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
924 the command line for writing.
926 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
928 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
929 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
932 =item Can't open perl script%s
934 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
936 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
937 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
938 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
940 =item Can't read CRTL environ
942 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
943 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
944 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
945 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
948 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
950 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
951 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
952 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
953 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
955 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
957 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
958 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
959 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
960 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
961 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
962 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
964 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
966 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
967 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
968 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
970 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
972 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
973 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
975 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
977 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
978 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
980 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
982 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
983 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
984 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
986 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
988 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
991 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
993 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
994 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
997 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
999 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1000 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1002 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1004 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1005 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1006 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1007 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1010 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1012 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1013 open already. Bizarre.
1015 =item Can't swap uid and euid
1017 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1020 =item Can't take log of %g
1022 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1023 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1024 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1027 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1029 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1030 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1031 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1033 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1035 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1036 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1037 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1041 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1042 as the main Perl stack.
1044 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
1046 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1047 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1048 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1049 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1051 =item Can't upgrade to undef
1053 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
1054 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
1057 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1059 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1060 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1061 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1063 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1065 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1066 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1068 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1070 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1071 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1073 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1075 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1076 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1077 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1079 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1081 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1082 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1083 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1085 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1087 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1090 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1092 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1093 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1094 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1095 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1098 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1100 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1101 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1102 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1103 is inside a big-endian group.
1105 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1107 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1108 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1109 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1110 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1113 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1115 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1116 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1117 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1119 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1121 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1122 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1124 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1126 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1127 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1128 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1130 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1132 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1133 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1134 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1135 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1136 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1139 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1141 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1142 references can be weakened.
1144 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1146 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1147 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1148 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1150 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1156 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1157 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1158 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1162 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1165 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1171 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1172 all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1175 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1177 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1183 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1184 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1185 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1187 pack("c", $x & 255);
1189 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1192 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1194 (W unpack) You tried something like
1196 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1198 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1199 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1200 modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1202 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1204 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1206 (W pack) You tried something like
1208 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1210 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1211 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1212 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1214 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1216 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1218 (W unpack) You tried something like
1220 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1222 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1223 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1224 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1226 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1228 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1230 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1232 =item Code missing after '/'
1234 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1235 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1237 =item %s: Command not found
1239 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1240 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1242 =item Compilation failed in require
1244 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1245 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1246 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1248 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1250 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1251 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1252 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1253 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1254 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1255 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1256 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1257 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1258 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1260 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1262 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1263 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1264 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1265 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1266 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1267 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1268 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1271 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1273 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1274 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1275 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1276 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1277 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1278 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1279 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1282 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1284 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1285 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1286 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1288 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1290 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1291 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1292 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1293 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1296 =item Constant is not %s reference
1298 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1299 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1300 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1301 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1302 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1304 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1306 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1307 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1308 commentary and workarounds.
1310 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1312 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1313 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1316 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1318 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1319 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1321 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1323 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1325 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1327 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1328 expression compiler gave it.
1330 =item corrupted regexp program
1332 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1335 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1337 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1339 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1341 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1342 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1345 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1347 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1348 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1349 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1350 which case it indicates something else.
1352 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1354 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1355 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1356 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1358 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1360 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1361 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1362 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1364 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1366 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1367 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1369 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1371 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1372 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1373 that triggers this error.
1375 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1377 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1378 There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1379 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1380 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1381 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1382 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1383 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1385 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1389 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1391 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1393 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1394 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1395 to create a dangling reference.
1397 =item Did not produce a valid header
1401 =item %s did not return a true value
1403 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1404 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1405 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1406 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1408 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1410 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1413 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1415 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1416 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1419 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1421 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1422 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1427 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1428 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1430 =item Document contains no data
1434 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1436 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1437 define a C<$VERSION.>
1439 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1441 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1442 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1444 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1446 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1448 =item do_study: out of memory
1450 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1452 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1454 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1455 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1456 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1457 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1458 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1459 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1460 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1461 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1463 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1465 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1466 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1468 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1470 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1473 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1475 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1476 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1478 =item elseif should be elsif
1480 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1481 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1482 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1483 unlikely to be what you want.
1487 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1488 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1489 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1491 =item entering effective %s failed
1493 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1494 effective uids or gids failed.
1496 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1498 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1499 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1500 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1502 =item Error converting file specification %s
1504 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1505 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1506 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1507 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1508 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1510 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1512 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1513 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1514 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1516 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1518 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1519 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1520 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1521 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1522 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1523 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1525 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1527 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1528 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1529 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1531 =item Excessively long <> operator
1533 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1534 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1535 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1536 variable and glob that.
1538 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1540 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1542 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1544 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1546 =item Exiting eval via %s
1548 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1549 goto, or a loop control statement.
1551 =item Exiting format via %s
1553 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1554 goto, or a loop control statement.
1556 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1558 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1559 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1560 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1562 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1564 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1565 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1567 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1569 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1570 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1572 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1574 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1575 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1576 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1577 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1579 =item %s: Expression syntax
1581 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1582 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1584 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1586 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1587 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1588 routines has been prematurely ended.
1590 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1592 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1593 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1594 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1595 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1596 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1598 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1600 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1601 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1602 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1603 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1605 =item fcntl is not implemented
1607 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1608 PDP-11 or something?
1610 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1612 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1613 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1614 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1617 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1619 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1620 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1621 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1622 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1624 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1626 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1627 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1628 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1629 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1630 Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1631 (also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1633 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1635 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1636 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occured because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1639 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1641 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1642 as STDIN. This occured because you closed STDIN previously.
1644 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1646 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1647 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1648 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1651 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1653 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1654 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1655 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1658 =item Format not terminated
1660 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1661 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1663 =item Format %s redefined
1665 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1668 no warnings 'redefine';
1669 eval "format NAME =...";
1672 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1682 (or something like that).
1684 =item %s found where operator expected
1686 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1687 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1688 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1689 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1691 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1693 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1695 =item gethostent not implemented
1697 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1698 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1701 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1703 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1704 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1706 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1708 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1709 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1711 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1713 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1714 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1715 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1717 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1719 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1720 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1721 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1724 =item glob failed (%s)
1726 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1727 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1728 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1729 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1730 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1731 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1732 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1733 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1734 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1735 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1736 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1738 =item Glob not terminated
1740 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1741 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1742 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1743 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1745 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1747 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1748 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1750 =item goto must have label
1752 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1753 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1755 =item ()-group starts with a count
1757 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
1758 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1759 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1761 =item %s had compilation errors
1763 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1765 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1767 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1768 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1769 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1771 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1773 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1774 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1776 =item %s has too many errors
1778 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1779 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1781 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1783 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1784 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1785 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1787 =item Identifier too long
1789 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1790 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1791 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1792 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1794 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1796 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1798 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1800 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1801 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1804 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1806 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1807 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1808 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1809 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1810 to your Perl administrator.
1812 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1814 (W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
1815 characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1817 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1819 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1820 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1822 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
1824 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
1826 =item Illegal division by zero
1828 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1829 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1832 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1834 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1835 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1836 number stopped before the illegal character.
1838 =item Illegal modulus zero
1840 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1841 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1843 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1845 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1846 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1848 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1850 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1852 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1854 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1855 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1857 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1859 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1860 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmtw]>.
1862 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1864 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1865 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1866 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1868 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1870 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1871 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1872 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1875 =item Impossible to activate assertion call
1877 (W assertions) You're calling an assertion function in a block that is
1878 not under the control of the C<assertions> pragma.
1880 =item (in cleanup) %s
1882 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1883 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1884 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1885 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1886 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1888 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1889 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1891 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
1893 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
1894 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
1895 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
1897 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1899 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1900 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1901 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1902 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1903 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1904 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1905 L<perlsec> for more information.
1907 =item Insecure directory in %s
1909 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1910 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1911 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
1914 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1916 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1917 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1918 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
1919 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
1920 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1922 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1924 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1925 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1926 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1927 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1928 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1929 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1930 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1931 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1934 =item Integer overflow in version
1936 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
1937 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
1938 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
1939 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
1940 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
1943 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1945 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1946 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1949 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1951 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1952 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1953 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1954 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1955 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1956 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1958 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1960 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
1961 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1964 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1966 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1967 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1968 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1969 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1971 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1973 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1974 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1976 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1978 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1979 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1981 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1983 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1984 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1986 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1988 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1989 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
1990 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
1991 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1992 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1994 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
1996 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1997 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1999 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2001 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2002 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2003 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2006 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2008 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2009 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2010 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2011 list was terminated too soon.
2013 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2015 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2016 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2017 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2020 =item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
2022 (F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
2023 that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
2026 =item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
2028 (F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
2029 See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
2031 =item ioctl is not implemented
2033 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2034 strange for a machine that supports C.
2036 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2038 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2039 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2041 =item IO layers (like "%s") unavailable
2043 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2044 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2047 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2049 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2050 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2052 =item $* is no longer supported
2054 (D deprecated) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
2055 been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2056 C<//m> and C<//s> regexp modifiers instead.
2058 =item `%s' is not a code reference
2060 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2061 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
2064 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2066 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2069 =item junk on end of regexp
2071 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2073 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2075 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2076 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2079 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2081 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2082 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2085 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2087 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2088 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2091 =item leaving effective %s failed
2093 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2094 effective uids or gids failed.
2096 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2098 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was alread used up when an unpack
2099 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2100 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2102 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2104 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2105 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2108 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2110 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2111 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The <-- HERE
2112 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2114 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
2116 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2117 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2118 instead on the filehandle.)
2120 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2122 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2123 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2124 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2126 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2128 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2129 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2131 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2133 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2134 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2136 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2138 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2145 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2146 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2147 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2148 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2150 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2152 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2153 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2154 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2155 when the function is called.
2157 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2159 (W utf8) Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
2161 One possible cause is that you read in data that you thought to be in
2162 UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit data). Another
2163 possibility is careless use of utf8::upgrade().
2165 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2167 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2168 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2170 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2172 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2173 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2175 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2177 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2178 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2180 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2182 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2183 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2185 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2187 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2188 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2189 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2192 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2194 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2195 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2198 =item % may not be used in pack
2200 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2201 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2202 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2204 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2206 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2207 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2209 =item Method %s not permitted
2213 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2215 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2216 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2217 ended earlier on the current line.
2219 =item Misplaced _ in number
2221 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2222 separate two digits.
2224 =item Missing argument to -%c
2226 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2227 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2229 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
2231 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2232 double-quotish context.
2234 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2236 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2237 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2239 =item Missing command in piped open
2241 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2242 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2245 =item Missing control char name in \c
2247 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2250 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2252 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2253 they have a name with which they can be found.
2255 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2257 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2258 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2259 can vary from one line to the next.
2261 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2263 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2264 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2266 =item Missing right brace on %s
2268 (F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
2270 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2272 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2273 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2276 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2278 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2279 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2280 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2282 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2284 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2285 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2286 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2288 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2291 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2293 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2294 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2297 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2298 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2301 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2303 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2304 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2307 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2309 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2310 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2312 =item Module name must be constant
2314 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2316 =item Module name required with -%c option
2318 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2319 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2320 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2322 =item More than one argument to open
2324 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2325 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2326 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2327 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2329 =item msg%s not implemented
2331 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2333 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2335 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2336 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2338 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2340 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2341 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2342 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2344 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2346 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2349 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2351 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2352 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2353 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2355 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2357 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2358 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2359 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2360 provided for this purpose.
2362 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2363 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2364 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2365 will not trigger this warning.
2367 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2369 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2370 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2372 =item Negative length
2374 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2375 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2377 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2379 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2380 greater than or equal to zero.
2382 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2384 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2385 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2386 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2388 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2389 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2391 =item %s never introduced
2393 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2394 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2396 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2398 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2399 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2400 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2401 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2403 =item No comma allowed after %s
2405 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2406 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2407 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2409 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2410 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2411 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2412 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2413 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2414 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2415 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2416 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2417 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2418 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2419 this error was triggered?
2421 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2423 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2424 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2425 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2427 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2429 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2430 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2431 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2434 =item No dbm on this machine
2436 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2437 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2439 =item No DB::sub routine defined
2441 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2442 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2443 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2444 of each ordinary subroutine call.
2446 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2448 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2450 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2452 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2453 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2454 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2456 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2458 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2459 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2461 =item No input file after < on command line
2463 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2464 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2465 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2469 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2470 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2472 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2474 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2475 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2477 =item No output file after > on command line
2479 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2480 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2481 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2483 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2485 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2486 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2487 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2489 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2491 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2492 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2493 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2495 =item No Perl script found in input
2497 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2498 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2500 =item No setregid available
2502 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2505 =item No setreuid available
2507 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2510 =item No %s specified for -%c
2512 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2513 you haven't specified one.
2515 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2517 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2518 but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2519 package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2521 =item No such class %s
2523 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration, but
2524 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2526 =item No such pipe open
2528 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2529 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2530 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2532 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2534 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2535 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2536 names on your system.
2538 =item Not a CODE reference
2540 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2541 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2542 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2545 =item Not a format reference
2547 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2548 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2550 =item Not a GLOB reference
2552 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2553 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2554 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2555 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2557 =item Not a HASH reference
2559 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2560 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2561 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2563 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2565 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2566 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2567 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2569 =item Not a perl script
2571 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2572 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2575 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2577 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2578 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2579 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2581 =item Not a subroutine reference
2583 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2584 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2585 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2588 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2590 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2591 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2593 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2595 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2597 =item Not enough format arguments
2599 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2600 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2604 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2605 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2608 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2610 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2611 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2612 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2613 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2614 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2616 =item Null filename used
2618 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2619 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2621 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2623 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2626 =item Null picture in formline
2628 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2629 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2630 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2634 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2636 =item NULL regexp argument
2638 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2640 =item NULL regexp parameter
2642 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2644 =item Number too long
2646 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2647 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2648 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2649 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2652 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2654 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2655 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2658 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2660 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2661 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2662 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2664 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2666 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2668 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2669 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
2671 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2673 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2674 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2676 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2678 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2679 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2681 =item Offset outside string
2683 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2684 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2685 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2686 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2688 =item %s() on unopened %s
2690 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2691 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2692 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2694 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2696 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2697 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2701 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2705 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2707 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2709 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2710 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2711 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2712 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2714 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2716 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2717 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2718 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2719 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2722 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2724 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2725 in the current lexical scope.
2727 =item Out of memory!
2729 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2730 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2731 no option but to exit immediately.
2733 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
2734 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
2735 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
2736 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
2737 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
2739 =item Out of memory during %s extend
2741 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
2742 the largest possible memory allocation.
2744 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2746 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2747 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2748 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2749 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2751 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2753 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2754 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2757 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2758 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2759 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2760 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2761 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2762 where the failed request happened.
2764 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2766 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2767 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2768 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2770 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2772 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2773 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2776 =item '.' outside of string in pack
2778 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
2779 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
2781 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
2783 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2784 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2786 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
2788 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2789 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
2790 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2792 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2794 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2795 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2796 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2797 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2799 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
2801 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2802 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2806 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2807 page. See L<perlform>.
2811 (P) An internal error.
2813 =item panic: ck_grep
2815 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2817 =item panic: ck_split
2819 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2821 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2823 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2824 there are in the savestack.
2826 =item panic: del_backref
2828 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2831 =item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
2833 (P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
2834 last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
2835 an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
2836 a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
2840 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2841 it wasn't an eval context.
2843 =item panic: do_subst
2845 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2848 =item panic: do_trans_%s
2850 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
2855 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2859 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2860 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2862 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2864 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2866 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2868 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2870 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2872 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2876 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2877 it wasn't a block context.
2879 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2881 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2884 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2886 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2887 invalid enum on the top of it.
2889 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2891 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2892 references to an object.
2896 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2898 =item panic: mapstart
2900 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2902 =item panic: memory wrap
2904 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
2906 =item panic: null array
2908 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2910 =item panic: pad_alloc
2912 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2913 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2915 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2917 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2918 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2920 =item panic: pad_free po
2922 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2924 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2926 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2927 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2929 =item panic: pad_sv po
2931 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2933 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2935 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2936 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2938 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2940 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2942 =item panic: pp_iter
2944 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2946 =item panic: pp_match%s
2948 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2951 =item panic: pp_split
2953 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2955 =item panic: realloc
2957 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2959 =item panic: restartop
2961 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2962 didn't supply the destination.
2966 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2967 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2969 =item panic: scan_num
2971 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2973 =item panic: sv_insert
2975 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2978 =item panic: top_env
2980 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2982 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2984 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2985 to even) byte length.
2989 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2991 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2993 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2999 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3001 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
3003 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3005 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3006 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3007 redirected it with select().)
3009 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3011 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3012 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3013 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3015 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3017 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3018 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3019 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3020 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3022 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3024 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3025 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3026 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3028 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3030 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3031 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3033 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3035 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3037 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3039 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3041 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3042 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3045 are supported and installed on your system.
3046 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3048 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3049 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3050 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3051 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3052 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3053 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3054 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3055 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3056 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3057 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3059 =item Permission denied
3061 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
3063 =item pid %x not a child
3065 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3066 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3067 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3069 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3071 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3073 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
3075 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
3076 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
3078 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3080 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3081 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3082 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3083 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3084 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3086 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3088 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3089 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3091 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3093 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3094 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3095 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3096 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3097 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3098 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3100 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3102 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3103 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3104 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3105 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3106 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3107 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3109 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3111 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3112 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3113 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3114 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3115 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3116 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3118 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3120 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3121 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3122 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3123 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3125 You probably wrote something like this:
3132 when you should have written this:
3139 If you really want comments, build your list the
3140 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3144 'b', # another comment
3147 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3149 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3150 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3151 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3154 You probably wrote something like this:
3158 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3159 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3163 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3165 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3166 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3167 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3168 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3170 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3172 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3173 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3175 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3177 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3178 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3179 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3180 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3182 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3184 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3185 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3186 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3187 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3189 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
3191 (D deprecated) You have written something like this:
3195 use attrs qw(locked);
3198 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
3204 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
3205 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
3207 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3209 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3213 is now misinterpreted as
3217 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3218 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3219 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3222 =item Premature end of script headers
3226 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3228 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3229 before now. Check your control flow.
3231 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3233 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3234 before now. Check your control flow.
3236 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3238 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3239 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3240 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3241 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3244 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3246 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3247 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3249 =item Prototype not terminated
3251 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3254 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3256 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3257 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3258 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3260 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3262 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3263 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3264 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3266 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3268 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3269 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3270 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3271 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3272 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3274 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3277 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3279 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3280 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3281 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3282 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3284 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3286 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3287 before now. Check your control flow.
3289 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3291 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3293 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3295 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3297 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
3299 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3301 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3303 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3306 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3308 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3309 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3310 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3312 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3314 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
3315 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
3317 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3319 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3320 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3323 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3325 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3326 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3327 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3328 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3330 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3331 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3332 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3333 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3335 =item Reference is already weak
3337 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3338 Doing so has no effect.
3340 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3342 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3343 a reference count of other than 1.
3345 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3347 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3348 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3349 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3350 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
3352 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3355 =item regexp memory corruption
3357 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3358 expression compiler gave it.
3360 =item Regexp out of space
3362 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3365 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3367 (F) Your format containes the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
3368 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3369 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3371 =item Reversed %s= operator
3373 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3374 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3376 =item Runaway format
3378 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3379 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3380 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3381 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3382 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3384 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3386 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3387 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3388 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3389 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3391 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3393 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3394 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3395 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3396 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3397 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3398 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3399 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3401 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3402 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3403 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3406 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3408 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3409 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3410 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3411 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3412 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3413 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3414 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3416 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3417 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3418 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3421 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3423 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3424 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
3426 =item Search pattern not terminated
3428 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3429 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3430 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3432 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
3433 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3434 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3435 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3437 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3439 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3440 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3442 =item select not implemented
3444 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3446 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3448 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3449 the current implementation.
3451 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3453 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3454 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3456 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3458 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3459 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3461 =item sem%s not implemented
3463 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3465 =item send() on closed socket %s
3467 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3468 before now. Check your control flow.
3470 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3472 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3473 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3476 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3478 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3479 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3480 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3482 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3484 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3485 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3486 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3488 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3490 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3491 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3492 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3495 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3497 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3498 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3499 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3502 =item 500 Server error
3508 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3509 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3510 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3511 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3512 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3513 produce a valid header".
3515 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3517 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3518 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3519 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3520 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3521 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3522 Please see the following for more information:
3524 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3525 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3526 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
3528 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3530 =item setegid() not implemented
3532 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3533 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3536 =item seteuid() not implemented
3538 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3539 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3542 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3544 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3545 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3548 =item setrgid() not implemented
3550 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3551 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3554 =item setruid() not implemented
3556 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3557 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3560 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3562 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3563 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3564 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3566 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3568 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3569 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3571 =item Setuid script not plain file
3573 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
3574 but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
3576 =item shm%s not implemented
3578 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3580 =item !=~ should be !~
3582 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
3583 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
3584 operators: probably not what you intended.
3586 =item <> should be quotes
3588 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3591 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3593 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3594 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3595 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3596 probably not what you had in mind.
3598 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3600 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3603 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3605 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3606 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3608 =item sort is now a reserved word
3610 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3611 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3613 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3615 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3616 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3617 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3619 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3621 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3622 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3624 =item splice() offset past end of array
3626 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
3627 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
3628 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
3629 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
3634 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3635 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3636 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3638 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3640 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3641 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3642 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3643 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3646 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3648 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3649 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3651 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3653 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3654 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3655 C<can> may break this.
3657 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3659 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3662 no warnings 'redefine';
3663 eval "sub name { ... }";
3666 =item Substitution loop
3668 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3669 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3670 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3671 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3673 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3675 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3676 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3677 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3679 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3681 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3682 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3683 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3685 =item substr outside of string
3687 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3688 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3689 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3690 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3691 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3693 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3695 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3696 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3698 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3700 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3701 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3702 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3703 clustering parentheses:
3705 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3707 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3708 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3710 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3712 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3713 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3714 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3716 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3718 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3719 and effective uids or gids.
3723 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3727 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3729 A keyword is misspelled.
3730 A semicolon is missing.
3732 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3733 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3734 A closing quote is missing.
3736 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3737 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3738 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3739 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3740 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3741 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3742 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3743 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3744 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3747 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3749 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3750 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3753 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
3755 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
3756 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
3757 or "my $var" or "our $var".
3759 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
3761 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3763 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
3765 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3767 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3769 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3770 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3771 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3772 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3774 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3776 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3777 before now. Check your control flow.
3779 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
3781 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
3782 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
3784 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3786 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3787 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3789 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3791 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3792 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3794 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3796 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3797 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3806 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3807 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3809 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3811 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3812 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3813 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3814 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3817 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3819 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3820 to the probings of Configure.
3822 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3824 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3825 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3826 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3829 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
3831 (F) Currently this attribute is not supported on C<my> or C<sub>
3832 declarations. See L<perlfunc/our>.
3834 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3836 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3838 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3839 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3840 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3841 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3842 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3843 target of the change to
3844 %ENV which produced the warning.
3846 =item thread failed to start: %s
3848 (F) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
3850 =item times not implemented
3852 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3853 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3855 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
3857 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3858 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3859 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3860 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3863 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3864 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3865 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3866 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3868 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3869 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3871 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
3873 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
3874 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
3875 specified an illegal mapping.
3876 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
3878 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
3880 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
3882 =item Too few args to syscall
3884 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3885 system call to call, silly dilly.
3887 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3889 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3890 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option. This is an error because those options
3891 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3893 =item Too late to run %s block
3895 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3896 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3897 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3898 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3901 =item Too many args to syscall
3903 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3905 =item Too many arguments for %s
3907 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3911 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3912 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3916 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3917 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3919 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
3921 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3922 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3924 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3926 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3927 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3928 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3930 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3932 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
3933 y/// or y[][] construct.
3935 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
3937 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
3938 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
3940 =item truncate not implemented
3942 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3943 Configure knows about.
3945 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3947 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3948 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3949 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3950 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3952 =item umask not implemented
3954 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3955 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3957 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3959 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3961 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3963 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3964 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3966 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3968 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3969 many values were temporarily localized.
3971 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3973 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3974 many blocks were entered and left.
3976 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3978 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3979 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3981 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3983 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3984 another package? See L<perlform>.
3986 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3988 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3989 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3991 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3993 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3994 since been undefined.
3996 =item Undefined subroutine called
3998 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3999 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4001 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
4003 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4004 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4006 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
4008 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4009 another package? See L<perlform>.
4011 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4013 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4014 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4017 =item %s: Undefined variable
4019 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4020 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4022 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4024 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4025 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4027 =item Unicode character %s is illegal
4029 (W utf8) Certain Unicode characters have been designated off-limits by
4030 the Unicode standard and should not be generated. If you really know
4031 what you are doing you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4033 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
4035 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4038 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4040 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
4041 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
4042 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
4044 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4046 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4047 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4048 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4049 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4050 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4051 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4053 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4055 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4056 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4057 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4058 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
4060 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4062 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4064 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4066 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4067 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4068 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4069 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4070 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4073 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4074 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4076 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4078 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4079 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4081 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4083 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4084 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4086 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4088 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4089 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4091 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4092 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
4095 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4097 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
4098 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
4099 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4100 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4102 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4104 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
4105 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4106 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4107 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4109 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
4111 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4112 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4113 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4114 you were last editing.
4116 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4118 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4119 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4120 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4123 =item Unrecognized character %s
4125 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
4126 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
4127 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
4129 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
4131 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4132 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4133 understood literally.
4135 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
4137 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4140 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4142 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4143 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
4144 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
4145 literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4146 escape was discovered.
4148 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4150 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4151 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4154 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
4156 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4157 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4158 bad switch on your behalf.)
4160 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4162 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4163 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
4164 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
4166 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4168 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4170 =item Unsupported function %s
4172 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4173 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4175 =item Unsupported function fork
4177 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4179 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4180 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4181 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
4183 =item Unsupported script encoding %s
4185 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
4186 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
4188 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4190 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4191 least that's what Configure thought.
4193 =item Unterminated attribute list
4195 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4196 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4197 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4198 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
4200 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4202 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4203 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
4204 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4205 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4207 =item Unterminated compressed integer
4209 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4210 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4211 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4213 =item Unterminated <> operator
4215 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
4216 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4217 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4218 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
4220 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
4222 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4223 still valid when C<untie> was called.
4225 =item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4227 (F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4228 See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4230 =item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4232 (F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4233 See L<Win32> for more information.
4235 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4237 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4238 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
4240 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
4244 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
4246 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4247 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4249 =item Useless localization of %s
4251 (W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4252 legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4253 some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4255 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4257 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4258 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
4260 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
4264 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
4266 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4267 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4269 =item Useless use of %s in void context
4271 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
4272 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4273 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4274 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4275 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4276 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4281 when you meant to say
4283 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4285 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4286 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4291 when you should have said
4295 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4296 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4297 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4298 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4299 L<perlref> for more on this.
4301 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4302 since they are often used in statements like
4304 1 while sub_with_side_effects() ;
4306 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4309 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
4311 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4313 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4315 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4319 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4321 =item Useless use of %s with no values
4323 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
4324 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4325 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4326 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4327 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4328 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4330 =item "use" not allowed in expression
4332 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4333 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4335 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4337 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
4338 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4340 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4342 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4343 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4344 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4347 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4348 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4350 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4352 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4353 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4355 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4357 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4358 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4359 used. (This may change in the future.)
4361 =item Use of freed value in iteration
4363 (F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
4364 This error is typically caused by code like the following:
4367 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
4369 You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
4370 For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
4371 reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
4372 middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
4374 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4376 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4377 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4379 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
4381 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4382 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4383 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
4385 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
4387 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
4388 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
4389 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
4391 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4393 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4394 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4395 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4396 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4399 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4400 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4401 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4402 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4405 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
4406 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4407 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4408 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4411 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4412 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
4413 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
4415 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4417 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4418 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4420 =item Use of $# is deprecated
4422 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
4423 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
4425 =item Use of %s is deprecated
4427 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
4428 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4429 old way has bad side effects.
4431 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4433 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4434 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4435 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4437 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4439 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4440 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4441 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4444 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
4446 (W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
4447 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4448 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
4450 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
4451 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4452 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
4453 operators and then you assumedly know what you are doing.
4455 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4457 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4458 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4459 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4460 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4461 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4462 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
4464 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
4466 (W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
4467 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
4468 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
4469 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
4471 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
4473 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
4474 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
4475 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
4477 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
4478 name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
4479 do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
4480 in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
4481 displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
4482 program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
4483 . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
4484 even though there is no C<.> in your program.
4486 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
4488 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
4489 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
4490 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
4491 be removed in a future version.
4493 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
4495 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
4496 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
4497 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
4498 removed in a future version.
4500 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
4502 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of an UTF-16 surrogate by
4503 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
4504 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
4505 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
4506 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
4507 character. If you really know what you are doing you can turn off
4508 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4510 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
4512 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
4513 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
4514 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
4515 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
4516 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
4517 C<defined> operator.
4519 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
4521 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
4522 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
4523 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
4526 =item Variable "%s" is not available
4528 (W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
4529 attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
4530 This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
4531 declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
4532 (Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
4533 subs are created at run-time.) For example,
4535 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
4537 At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
4538 since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
4539 the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
4540 now been created and is live:
4542 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
4544 The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
4545 gone out of scope, for example,
4553 Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
4554 executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
4556 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
4558 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
4559 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
4560 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
4561 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
4562 front of your variable.
4564 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4566 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
4567 known at compile time. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4568 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4570 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
4572 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
4573 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
4574 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
4575 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
4576 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
4578 =item Variable syntax
4580 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4581 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4584 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4586 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
4587 lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
4589 When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
4590 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4591 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4592 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4593 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4594 variable will no longer be shared.
4596 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4597 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
4598 reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
4599 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
4601 =item Version number must be a constant number
4603 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4604 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4607 =item v-string in use/require is non-portable
4609 (W portable) The use of v-strings is non-portable to older, pre-5.6, Perls.
4610 If you want your scripts to be backward portable, use the floating
4611 point version number: for example, instead of C<use 5.6.1> say
4612 C<use 5.006_001>. This of course won't help: the older Perls
4613 won't suddenly start understanding newer features, but at least
4614 they will show a sensible error message indicating the required
4617 =item Warning: something's wrong
4619 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
4620 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
4622 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
4624 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4625 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4628 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
4630 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4631 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4632 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4633 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
4637 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4641 but in actual fact, you got
4645 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
4647 =item Wide character in %s
4649 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
4650 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
4651 way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
4652 output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
4653 warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
4654 cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
4655 filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4657 =item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
4659 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
4660 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
4661 determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
4662 of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
4664 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
4666 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4667 before now. Check your control flow.
4669 =item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
4671 When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
4672 into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
4673 this encoding, for example
4675 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
4677 if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
4679 =item 'X' outside of string
4681 (F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
4682 the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4684 =item 'x' outside of string in unpack
4686 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
4687 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4689 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
4691 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4694 =item Xsub called in sort
4696 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4699 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
4701 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
4702 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
4703 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
4706 =item You need to quote "%s"
4708 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
4709 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
4710 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
4711 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
4712 what you want, put an & in front.)
4714 =item Your random numbers are not that random
4716 (F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
4717 not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
4718 Something Very Wrong.