3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and
116 transliteration (tr///) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
141 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
143 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
149 or a hash or array slice, such as:
151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
154 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
156 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
157 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
162 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
166 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
168 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
169 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
171 =item assertion botched: %s
173 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
175 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
177 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
179 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
181 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
182 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
183 know which context to supply to the right side.
185 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
187 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
188 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
189 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
195 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
197 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
198 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
201 bless $self, "$proto";
203 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
205 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
206 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
207 outside any of those arenas.
209 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
211 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
212 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
213 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
214 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
216 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
218 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
219 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
220 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
221 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
224 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
226 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
228 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
230 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
231 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
232 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
233 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
234 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
235 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
238 =item Attempt to join self
240 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
241 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
242 to move the join() to some other thread.
244 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
246 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
247 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
248 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
249 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
250 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
253 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
255 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
256 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
257 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
259 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
261 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
262 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
263 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
264 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
266 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
268 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
269 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
270 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
272 =item Bad filehandle: %s
274 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
275 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
276 open(), or did it in another package.
278 =item Bad free() ignored
280 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
281 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
282 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
284 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
285 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
286 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
290 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
292 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
294 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
295 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
298 =item Badly placed ()'s
300 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
301 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
304 =item Bad name after %s::
306 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
307 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
316 $sym = "mypack::$var";
318 =item Bad realloc() ignored
320 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
321 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
322 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
324 =item Bad symbol for array
326 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
327 wasn't a symbol table entry.
329 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
331 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
332 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
334 =item Bad symbol for hash
336 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
337 wasn't a symbol table entry.
339 =item Bareword found in conditional
341 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
342 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
343 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
347 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
350 use constant TYPO => 1;
351 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
353 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
355 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
357 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
358 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
359 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
361 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
363 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
364 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
365 you need to predeclare a package?
367 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
369 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
370 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
373 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
375 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
376 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
377 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
378 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
379 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
381 =item \1 better written as $1
383 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
384 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
385 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
386 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
387 there are more than 9 backreferences.
389 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
391 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
392 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
393 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
395 =item bind() on closed socket %s
397 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
398 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
400 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
402 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
404 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
406 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
409 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
411 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
412 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
414 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
416 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
417 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
418 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
420 =item Callback called exit
422 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
423 exited by calling exit.
425 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
427 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
428 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
429 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
430 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
431 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
432 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
433 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
434 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
436 =item / cannot take a count
438 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
439 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
442 =item Can't bless non-reference value
444 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
445 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
447 =item Can't break at that line
449 (S internal) A warning intended to only be printed while running within
450 the debugger, indicating the line number specified wasn't the location
451 of a statement that could be stopped at.
453 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
455 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
456 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
457 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
459 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
461 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
462 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
463 like this will reproduce the error:
466 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
467 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
469 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
471 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
472 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
473 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
474 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
476 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
478 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
479 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
480 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
481 Something like this will reproduce the error:
484 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
485 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
487 =item Can't chdir to %s
489 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
490 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
492 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
494 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
497 =item Can't coerce array into hash
499 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
500 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
501 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
503 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
505 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
506 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
516 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
518 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
520 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
521 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
523 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
525 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
526 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
528 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
530 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
531 quotas or other plumbing problems.
533 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
535 (S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
536 qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
537 for other types of variables in future.
539 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
541 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
542 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
544 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
546 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
547 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
549 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
551 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
554 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
556 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
557 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
558 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
560 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
562 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
563 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
564 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
566 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m
568 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
569 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
571 =item Can't do setegid!
573 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
576 =item Can't do seteuid!
578 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
580 =item Can't do setuid
582 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
583 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
584 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
585 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
586 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
587 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
589 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
591 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
592 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
594 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
596 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
597 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
600 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
602 (W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
603 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
604 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
605 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
606 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
607 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
612 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
613 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
614 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
616 =item Can't execute %s
618 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
619 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
621 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
623 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
624 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
626 =item Can't find label %s
628 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
629 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
631 =item Can't find %s on PATH
633 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
636 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
638 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
639 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
640 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
642 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
644 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
645 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
646 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
648 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
650 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
651 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
652 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
656 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
659 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
661 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
662 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
663 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
664 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
665 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
666 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
667 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
668 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
669 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
670 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
671 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
672 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
673 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
674 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
675 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
677 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
679 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
680 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
682 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
684 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
685 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
687 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
689 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
690 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
692 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
694 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
695 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
696 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
697 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
699 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
701 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
702 "string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
703 probably don't want to.)
705 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
707 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
708 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
709 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
710 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
712 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
714 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
715 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
716 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
717 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
718 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
719 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
721 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
723 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
724 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
725 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
726 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
727 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
728 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
731 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
733 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
734 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
735 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
738 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
740 (F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
741 reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
742 can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
743 directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
745 =item Can't localize through a reference
747 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
748 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
749 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
750 that $ref will still be a reference.
752 =item Can't locate %s
754 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
755 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
756 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
757 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
758 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
759 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
760 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
762 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
764 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
765 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
766 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
767 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
769 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
771 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
772 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
773 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
775 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
777 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
778 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
779 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
781 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
783 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
784 doesn't seem to exist.
786 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
788 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
791 =item Can't modify %s in %s
793 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
794 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
796 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
798 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
801 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
803 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
804 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
806 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
808 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
811 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
813 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
814 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
815 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
816 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
817 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
818 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
820 =item Can't open %s: %s
822 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
823 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
824 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
825 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
828 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
830 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
831 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
832 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
833 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
835 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
837 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
838 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
839 the command line for writing.
841 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
843 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
844 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
845 command line for reading.
847 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
849 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
850 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
851 the command line for writing.
853 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
855 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
856 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
859 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
861 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
863 =item Can't read CRTL environ
865 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
866 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
867 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
868 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
871 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
873 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
874 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
875 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
876 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
878 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
880 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
881 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
882 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
883 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
884 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
885 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
887 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
889 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
890 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
891 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
893 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
895 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
896 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
898 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
900 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
901 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
903 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
905 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
906 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
907 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
909 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
911 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
914 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
916 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
917 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
920 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
922 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
923 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
925 =item Can't stat script "%s"
927 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
928 open already. Bizarre.
930 =item Can't swap uid and euid
932 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
935 =item Can't take log of %g
937 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
938 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
939 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
942 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
944 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
945 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
946 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
948 =item Can't undef active subroutine
950 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
951 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
952 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
956 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
957 as the main Perl stack.
959 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
961 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
962 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
963 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
964 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
966 =item Can't upgrade to undef
968 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
969 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
972 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
974 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
975 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
977 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
979 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
980 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
982 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
984 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
985 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
986 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
988 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
990 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
993 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
995 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
996 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
997 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
998 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1001 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1003 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1004 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1005 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1006 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1009 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1011 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1012 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1013 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1015 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1017 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1018 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1020 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1022 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1023 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1024 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1026 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1028 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1029 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1030 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1031 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1032 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1035 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1037 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1038 references can be weakened.
1040 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1042 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1043 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1044 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1046 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1048 (W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1049 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for
1050 example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not
1051 currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future
1052 extensions and will cause fatal errors.
1054 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1056 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1057 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future
1058 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
1059 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
1060 with the backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1062 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1064 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1065 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future
1066 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
1067 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
1068 with the backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1070 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1072 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. See
1075 =item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
1077 (W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
1079 chmod 777, $filename
1081 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1082 equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1085 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1087 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1089 =item %s: Command not found
1091 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1092 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1094 =item Compilation failed in require
1096 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1097 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1098 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1100 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1102 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1103 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1104 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1105 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1106 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1107 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1108 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1109 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1110 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1112 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1114 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1115 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1116 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1118 =item constant(%s): %s
1120 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1121 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1122 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1123 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1126 =item Constant is not %s reference
1128 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1129 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1130 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1131 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1132 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1134 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1136 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1137 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1138 commentary and workarounds.
1140 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1142 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1143 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1146 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1148 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy
1151 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1153 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1155 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1157 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1158 expression compiler gave it.
1160 =item corrupted regexp program
1162 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1165 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1167 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1169 =item C<-p> destination: %s
1171 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1172 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1173 redirected it with select().)
1175 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1177 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1178 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1180 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1182 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1183 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1184 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1185 which case it indicates something else.
1187 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1189 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1190 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1191 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1193 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1195 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1196 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1197 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1199 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1201 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1202 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1203 that triggers this error.
1205 =item Did not produce a valid header
1209 =item %s did not return a true value
1211 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1212 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1213 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1214 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1216 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1218 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1221 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1223 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1224 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1227 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1229 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1230 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1235 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1236 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1238 =item Document contains no data
1242 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1244 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1246 =item do_study: out of memory
1248 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1250 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1252 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1253 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1254 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1255 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1256 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1257 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1258 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1259 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1261 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1263 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1266 =item elseif should be elsif
1268 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1269 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1270 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1271 unlikely to be what you want.
1273 =item entering effective %s failed
1275 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1276 effective uids or gids failed.
1278 =item Error converting file specification %s
1280 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1281 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1282 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1283 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1284 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1286 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1288 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1289 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1290 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1292 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1294 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1295 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1296 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1297 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1298 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1299 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1301 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1303 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1304 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1305 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1307 =item Excessively long <> operator
1309 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1310 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1311 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1312 variable and glob that.
1314 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1316 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1318 =item Exiting eval via %s
1320 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1321 goto, or a loop control statement.
1323 =item Exiting format via %s
1325 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1326 goto, or a loop control statement.
1328 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1330 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1331 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1332 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1334 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1336 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1337 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1339 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1341 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1342 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1344 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1346 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1347 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1348 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1349 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1351 =item %s: Expression syntax
1353 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1354 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1356 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1358 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1359 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1360 routines has been prematurely ended.
1362 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1364 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1365 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The
1366 "-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider
1367 quoting the "-", "\-". See L<perlre>.
1369 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1371 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1372 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1373 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1374 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1376 =item fcntl is not implemented
1378 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1379 PDP-11 or something?
1381 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1383 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1384 to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1385 or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1386 the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1388 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1390 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1391 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1392 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1393 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1395 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1397 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1398 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1399 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1402 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1404 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1405 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1406 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1409 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1411 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1412 some time before now. Check your logic flow. flock() operates on
1413 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1416 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
1418 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
1419 you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
1421 =item Format not terminated
1423 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1424 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1426 =item Format %s redefined
1428 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1432 eval "format NAME =...";
1435 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1445 (or something like that).
1447 =item %s found where operator expected
1449 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1450 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1451 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1452 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1454 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1456 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1458 =item gethostent not implemented
1460 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1461 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1464 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1466 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1467 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1469 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1471 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1472 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1474 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1476 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1477 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1478 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1480 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1482 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1483 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1484 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1487 =item glob failed (%s)
1489 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1490 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1491 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1492 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1493 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1494 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1495 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1496 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1497 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1498 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1499 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1501 =item Glob not terminated
1503 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1504 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1505 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1506 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1508 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1510 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1511 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1513 =item goto must have label
1515 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1516 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1518 =item %s had compilation errors
1520 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1522 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1524 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1525 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1526 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1528 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1530 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1531 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1533 =item %s has too many errors
1535 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1536 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1538 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1540 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1541 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1542 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1544 =item Identifier too long
1546 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1547 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1548 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1549 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1551 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1553 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1555 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1557 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1558 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1561 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1563 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1564 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1565 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1566 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1567 to your Perl administrator.
1569 =item Illegal division by zero
1571 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1572 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1575 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1577 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1578 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1579 number stopped before the illegal character.
1581 =item Illegal modulus zero
1583 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1584 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1586 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1588 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1589 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1591 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1593 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1595 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1597 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1598 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1600 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1602 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1603 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1605 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1607 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1608 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1609 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1611 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1613 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1614 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1615 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1618 =item (in cleanup) %s
1620 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1621 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1622 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1623 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1624 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1626 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1627 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1629 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1631 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1632 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1633 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1634 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1635 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1636 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1637 L<perlsec> for more information.
1639 =item Insecure directory in %s
1641 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1642 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1643 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1645 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1647 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1648 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1649 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1650 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1651 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1653 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1655 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1656 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was
1657 first used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and
1658 ambiguous instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a
1659 backslash to indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array
1660 within the program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will
1661 simply assume that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1663 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1665 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1666 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1667 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1668 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1669 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1670 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1671 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1672 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1675 =item internal disaster in regexp
1677 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1679 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1681 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1682 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1683 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1684 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1685 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1686 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1688 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1690 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1692 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1694 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1695 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1696 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms
1697 and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1699 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1701 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1702 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1704 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1706 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1707 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1709 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1711 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1712 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1714 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1716 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1717 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1719 =item invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1721 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1722 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1724 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1726 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1727 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1728 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1731 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1733 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1734 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1737 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1739 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1741 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1744 =item ioctl is not implemented
1746 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1747 strange for a machine that supports C.
1749 =item junk on end of regexp
1751 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1753 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1755 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1756 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1759 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1761 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1762 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1765 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1767 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1768 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1771 =item leaving effective %s failed
1773 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1774 effective uids or gids failed.
1776 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1778 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1779 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1782 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1784 (W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1785 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1786 instead on the filehandle.)
1788 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1790 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1791 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1792 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1794 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1796 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1804 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1805 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1806 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1807 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1809 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1811 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1812 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1814 =item %s matches null string many times
1816 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1817 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See
1820 =item % may only be used in unpack
1822 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
1823 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1824 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1826 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1828 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1829 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1831 =item Method %s not permitted
1835 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1837 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1838 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1839 ended earlier on the current line.
1841 =item Misplaced _ in number
1843 (W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1845 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1847 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1848 double-quotish context.
1850 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1852 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1853 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1855 =item Missing command in piped open
1857 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1858 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1861 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1863 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1864 they have a name with which they can be found.
1866 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1868 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1869 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1870 can vary from one line to the next.
1872 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
1874 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1875 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1877 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1879 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1880 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1883 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1885 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1886 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1887 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1889 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1891 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1892 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1893 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1895 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1898 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1900 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
1902 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1903 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1906 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
1908 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1909 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
1911 =item Module name must be constant
1913 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1915 =item Module name required with -%c option
1917 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1918 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1919 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
1921 =item msg%s not implemented
1923 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1925 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1927 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
1928 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1930 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
1932 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
1933 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
1934 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1936 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1938 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
1939 must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
1940 of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1942 =item / must follow a numeric type
1944 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
1945 follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1947 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
1949 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
1952 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
1954 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
1955 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
1956 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
1958 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1960 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1961 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1962 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1963 provided for this purpose.
1965 =item Negative length
1967 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
1968 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1970 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1972 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1973 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1975 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
1976 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1978 =item %s never introduced
1980 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
1981 scope before it could possibly have been used.
1983 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1985 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
1986 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
1987 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
1988 securable. See L<perlsec>.
1990 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1992 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1994 =item No comma allowed after %s
1996 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1997 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1998 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2000 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2001 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2002 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2003 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2004 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2005 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2006 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2007 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2008 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2009 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2010 this error was triggered?
2012 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2014 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2015 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2016 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2018 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2020 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2021 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2022 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2023 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2024 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2026 =item No dbm on this machine
2028 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2029 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2031 =item No DBsub routine
2033 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2034 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2035 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2036 ordinary subroutine call.
2038 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2040 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2041 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2042 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2044 =item No input file after < on command line
2046 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2047 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2048 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2052 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2053 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2055 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2057 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2058 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2060 =item No output file after > on command line
2062 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2063 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2064 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2066 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2068 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2069 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2070 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2072 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2074 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2075 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2076 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2078 =item No Perl script found in input
2080 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2081 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2083 =item No setregid available
2085 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2088 =item No setreuid available
2090 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2093 =item No space allowed after -%c
2095 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2096 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2098 =item No %s specified for -%c
2100 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2101 you haven't specified one.
2103 =item No such pipe open
2105 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2106 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2107 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2109 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2111 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2112 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2113 array indices for that to work.
2115 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2117 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2118 not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2119 %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2120 %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2122 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2124 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2125 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2126 names on your system.
2128 =item Not a CODE reference
2130 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2131 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2132 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2135 =item Not a format reference
2137 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2138 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2140 =item Not a GLOB reference
2142 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2143 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2144 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2145 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2147 =item Not a HASH reference
2149 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2150 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2151 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2153 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2155 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2156 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2157 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2159 =item Not a perl script
2161 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2162 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2165 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2167 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2168 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2169 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2171 =item Not a subroutine reference
2173 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2174 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2175 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2178 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2180 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2181 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2183 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2185 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2187 =item Not enough format arguments
2189 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2190 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2194 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2195 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2198 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2200 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2201 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2202 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2203 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2204 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2206 =item Null filename used
2208 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2209 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2211 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2213 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2216 =item Null picture in formline
2218 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2219 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2220 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2224 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2226 =item NULL regexp argument
2228 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2230 =item NULL regexp parameter
2232 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2234 =item Number too long
2236 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2237 about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2238 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2239 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2242 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2244 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2245 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2248 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2250 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2251 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2252 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2254 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2256 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2258 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2259 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2261 =item Offset outside string
2263 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2264 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2265 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2266 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2268 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2270 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2271 that isn't open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2273 =item %s() on unopened %s %s
2275 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2276 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2277 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2281 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2285 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2287 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2289 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2290 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2291 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2292 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2294 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2296 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2297 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2298 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2299 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2302 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2304 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2305 in the current lexical scope.
2307 =item Out of memory!
2309 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2310 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2311 no option but to exit immediately.
2313 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2315 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2316 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2317 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2318 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2320 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2322 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2323 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2326 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2327 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2328 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2329 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2330 is trappable I<once>.
2332 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2334 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2335 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2336 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2338 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2340 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2341 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2344 =item @ outside of string
2346 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2347 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2349 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2351 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2352 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2353 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2354 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2358 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2359 page. See L<perlform>.
2363 (P) An internal error.
2365 =item panic: ck_grep
2367 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2369 =item panic: ck_split
2371 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2373 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2375 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2376 there are in the savestack.
2378 =item panic: del_backref
2380 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2385 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2386 it wasn't an eval context.
2388 =item panic: do_match
2390 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2393 =item panic: do_split
2395 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2397 =item panic: do_subst
2399 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2402 =item panic: do_trans
2404 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational
2409 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2413 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2414 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2416 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2418 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2420 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2422 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2424 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2426 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2430 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2431 it wasn't a block context.
2433 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2435 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2438 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2440 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2441 invalid enum on the top of it.
2443 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2445 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2446 references to an object.
2450 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2452 =item panic: mapstart
2454 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2456 =item panic: null array
2458 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2460 =item panic: pad_alloc
2462 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2463 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2465 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2467 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2468 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2470 =item panic: pad_free po
2472 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2474 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2476 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2477 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2479 =item panic: pad_sv po
2481 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2483 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2485 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2486 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2488 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2490 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2492 =item panic: pp_iter
2494 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2496 =item panic: realloc
2498 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2500 =item panic: restartop
2502 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2503 didn't supply the destination.
2507 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2508 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2510 =item panic: scan_num
2512 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2514 =item panic: sv_insert
2516 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2519 =item panic: top_env
2521 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2525 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2527 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2529 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2530 to even) byte length.
2532 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2534 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2540 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2542 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2544 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2546 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2547 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2548 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2550 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2552 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2553 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2555 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2557 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2559 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2560 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2563 are supported and installed on your system.
2564 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2566 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2567 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2568 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
2569 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
2570 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
2571 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the script
2572 will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you will get
2573 the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really fix the
2574 problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2576 =item Permission denied
2578 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2580 =item pid %x not a child
2582 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2583 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2584 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2586 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2588 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2589 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2591 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2593 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2594 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2595 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2596 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2598 You probably wrote something like this:
2605 when you should have written this:
2612 If you really want comments, build your list the
2613 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2617 'b', # another comment
2620 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2622 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2623 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2624 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2627 You probably wrote something like this:
2631 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2632 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2636 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2638 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2639 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2640 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2641 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2643 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2645 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2646 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2648 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2650 (W deprecated) You have written something like this:
2654 use attrs qw(locked);
2657 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2663 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2664 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2666 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2668 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2672 is now misinterpreted as
2676 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2677 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2678 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2681 =item Premature end of script headers
2685 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2687 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2688 before now. Check your logic flow.
2690 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2692 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2693 before now. Check your logic flow.
2695 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2697 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2698 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2699 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2700 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
2703 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2705 (S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2706 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
2708 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2710 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2711 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2712 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2713 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2715 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2717 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2718 before now. Check your logic flow.
2720 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2722 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2724 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2726 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2729 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2731 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2732 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2733 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2735 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2737 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2738 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2740 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
2742 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2743 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2746 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2748 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2749 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2750 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2751 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2753 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2754 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2755 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2756 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2758 =item Reference is already weak
2760 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2761 Doing so has no effect.
2763 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2765 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2766 a reference count of other than 1.
2768 =item regexp memory corruption
2770 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2771 expression compiler gave it.
2773 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2775 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier could
2776 match an empty string.
2778 =item regexp out of space
2780 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2783 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
2785 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2786 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2788 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2790 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2791 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2793 =item Reversed %s= operator
2795 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2796 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2798 =item Runaway format
2800 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2801 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2802 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2803 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2804 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2806 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2808 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2809 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2810 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2811 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2812 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2813 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2814 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2816 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2817 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2818 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2821 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2823 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
2824 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
2825 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
2826 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2827 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2828 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2829 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2831 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
2832 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
2833 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2836 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2838 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2839 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2841 =item Search pattern not terminated
2843 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2844 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2845 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2847 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
2849 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
2850 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2852 =item select not implemented
2854 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2856 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2858 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
2859 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2861 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2863 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
2864 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
2866 =item sem%s not implemented
2868 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2870 =item send() on closed socket %s
2872 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
2873 before now. Check your logic flow.
2875 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2877 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. See
2880 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2882 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2883 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2885 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2887 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2890 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2892 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2893 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2895 =item 500 Server error
2901 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
2902 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
2903 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
2904 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
2905 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
2906 produce a valid header".
2908 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2910 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
2911 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
2912 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
2913 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
2914 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
2915 Please see the following for more information:
2917 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2918 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2919 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2920 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2921 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2923 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2925 =item setegid() not implemented
2927 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
2928 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2931 =item seteuid() not implemented
2933 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
2934 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2937 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
2939 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
2940 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
2943 =item setrgid() not implemented
2945 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
2946 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2949 =item setruid() not implemented
2951 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
2952 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2955 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
2957 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2958 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2959 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
2961 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2963 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
2964 world, because the world might have written on it already.
2966 =item shm%s not implemented
2968 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2970 =item <> should be quotes
2972 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
2975 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
2977 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
2978 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
2979 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
2980 probably not what you had in mind.
2982 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
2984 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
2987 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2989 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
2990 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
2992 =item sort is now a reserved word
2994 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2995 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2997 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2999 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3000 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3001 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3003 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3005 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3006 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3010 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3011 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3012 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3014 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3016 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3017 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3018 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3019 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3022 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3024 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3025 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3027 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
3029 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3030 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3031 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3032 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3033 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3035 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3037 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3038 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3039 C<can> may break this.
3041 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3043 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3047 eval "sub name { ... }";
3050 =item Substitution loop
3052 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3053 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3054 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3055 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3057 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3059 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3060 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3061 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3063 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3065 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3066 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3067 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3069 =item substr outside of string
3071 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3072 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3073 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3074 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3075 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3077 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3079 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3080 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3082 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3084 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3085 and effective uids or gids.
3089 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3091 A keyword is misspelled.
3092 A semicolon is missing.
3094 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3095 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3096 A closing quote is missing.
3098 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3099 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3100 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3101 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3102 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3103 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3104 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3105 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3106 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3109 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3111 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3112 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3117 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3119 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3121 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3122 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3123 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3124 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3126 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3128 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3129 before now. Check your logic flow.
3131 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3133 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3134 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3136 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3138 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3139 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3141 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3143 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3144 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3153 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3154 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3156 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3158 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3159 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3160 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3161 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3164 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3166 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3167 to the probings of Configure.
3169 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
3171 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3172 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3173 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3176 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3178 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3180 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3181 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3182 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3183 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3184 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3185 target of the change to
3186 %ENV which produced the warning.
3188 =item times not implemented
3190 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3191 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3193 =item Too few args to syscall
3195 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3196 system call to call, silly dilly.
3198 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3200 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3201 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3202 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3203 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3206 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3207 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3208 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3209 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3211 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3212 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3214 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3216 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3217 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3218 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3220 =item Too late to run %s block
3222 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3223 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3224 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3225 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3228 =item Too many args to syscall
3230 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3232 =item Too many arguments for %s
3234 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3238 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3239 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3243 =item trailing \ in regexp
3245 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3246 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3248 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3250 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3251 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3252 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3254 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3256 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3259 =item truncate not implemented
3261 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3262 Configure knows about.
3264 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3266 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3267 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3268 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3269 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3271 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3273 (W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3274 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3276 =item umask not implemented
3278 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3279 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3281 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3283 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3285 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3287 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3288 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3290 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3292 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3293 many values were temporarily localized.
3295 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3297 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3298 many blocks were entered and left.
3300 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3302 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3303 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3305 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3307 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3308 another package? See L<perlform>.
3310 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3312 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3313 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3315 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3317 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3318 since been undefined.
3320 =item Undefined subroutine called
3322 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3323 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3325 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3327 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3328 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3330 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3332 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3333 another package? See L<perlform>.
3335 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3337 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3338 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3341 =item %s: Undefined variable
3343 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3344 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3346 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3348 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3349 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3351 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3353 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3356 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3358 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3359 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3360 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3362 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3364 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3365 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3366 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3367 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3369 =item unmatched [] in regexp
3371 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3372 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3373 first. See L<perlre>.
3375 =item unmatched () in regexp
3377 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3378 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3379 matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3381 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3383 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3384 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3385 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3386 you were last editing.
3388 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3390 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3391 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3392 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3395 =item Unrecognized character %s
3397 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3398 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3399 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3401 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3403 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3404 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3405 understood literally.
3407 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3409 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3410 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated
3411 variable or a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was
3412 understood literally.
3414 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3416 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3419 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3421 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3422 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3425 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3427 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3428 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3429 bad switch on your behalf.)
3431 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3433 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3434 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3435 PROBABLY because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See
3438 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3440 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3442 =item Unsupported function %s
3444 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3445 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3447 =item Unsupported function fork
3449 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3451 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3452 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3453 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3455 =item Unsupported script encoding
3457 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3458 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3460 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3462 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3463 least that's what Configure thought.
3465 =item Unterminated attribute list
3467 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3468 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3469 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3470 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3472 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3474 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3475 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3476 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3477 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3479 =item Unterminated compressed integer
3481 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3482 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3483 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3485 =item Unterminated <> operator
3487 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3488 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3489 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3490 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3492 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3494 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3495 still valid when C<untie> was called.
3497 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3499 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3500 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3501 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3502 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3503 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3504 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3509 when you meant to say
3511 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3513 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3514 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3519 when you should have said
3523 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3524 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3525 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3526 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3527 L<perlref> for more on this.
3529 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3531 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3533 =item "use" not allowed in expression
3535 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3536 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3538 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3540 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
3541 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3543 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3545 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
3546 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
3547 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3549 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3551 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
3552 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
3553 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
3554 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
3557 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
3558 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
3559 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
3560 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
3563 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3564 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
3565 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
3566 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
3569 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
3570 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3571 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3573 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3575 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3576 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3578 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3580 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
3581 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
3582 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
3583 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3585 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3587 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
3588 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
3589 old way has bad side effects.
3591 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3593 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
3594 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3596 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3598 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
3599 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
3600 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
3601 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
3602 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
3603 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3605 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3607 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
3608 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
3609 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3611 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
3612 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
3613 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
3614 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
3615 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
3616 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
3619 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3621 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
3622 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
3623 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
3624 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
3625 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
3626 C<defined> operator.
3628 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3630 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
3631 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
3632 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
3635 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3637 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
3638 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3639 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
3640 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
3641 front of your variable.
3643 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
3645 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
3646 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
3647 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
3648 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
3649 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
3651 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3653 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
3654 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
3655 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
3656 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
3658 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3660 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3661 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
3662 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3663 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
3664 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
3665 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
3667 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
3668 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
3669 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
3670 between interferes with this feature.
3672 =item Variable syntax
3674 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3675 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3678 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3680 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
3681 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3683 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3684 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
3685 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
3686 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
3687 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
3688 variable will no longer be shared.
3690 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3691 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3692 will I<never> share the given variable.
3694 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3695 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3696 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
3697 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
3699 =item Version number must be a constant number
3701 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3702 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3705 =item Warning: something's wrong
3707 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3708 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3710 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3712 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
3713 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
3716 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3718 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
3719 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
3720 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
3721 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3725 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3729 but in actual fact, you got
3733 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3735 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
3737 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3738 before now. Check your logic flow.
3740 =item X outside of string
3742 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3743 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3745 =item x outside of string
3747 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3748 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3750 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3752 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3755 =item Xsub called in sort
3757 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3760 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3762 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
3763 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3764 Use a filename instead.
3766 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3768 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3769 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3770 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in the
3771 eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3773 =item You need to quote "%s"
3775 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
3776 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
3777 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
3778 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
3779 what you want, put an & in front.)