3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
22 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
23 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
24 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
27 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
28 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
29 The symbols C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
33 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
35 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try that
38 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
40 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
41 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
42 if you want to localize a package variable.
44 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
46 (W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
47 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
48 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
49 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
52 =item "no" not allowed in expression
54 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
55 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
57 =item "use" not allowed in expression
59 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
60 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
62 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
64 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
67 =item # cannot take a count
69 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
70 but you have also specified an explicit size for the string.
73 =item # must be followed by a, A or Z
75 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
76 which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z
77 to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked.
80 =item # must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
82 (F) You had an pack template indicating a counted-length string,
83 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*.
86 =item # must follow a numeric type
88 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#',
89 but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.
92 =item % may only be used in unpack
94 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
95 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
96 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
98 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
100 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
101 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
103 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
105 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
106 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
108 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
110 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
111 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
112 C<'>-delimited regular expression.
114 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
116 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
117 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
118 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
120 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
122 (W) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a
123 definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call
124 conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype
125 declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine
126 definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively,
127 if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put
128 an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L<perlsub>.
130 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
132 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
135 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
137 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
139 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
142 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
144 or a hash slice, such as
146 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
147 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
149 =item %s did not return a true value
151 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
152 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
153 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
154 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
156 =item %s found where operator expected
158 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
159 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
160 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
161 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
163 =item %s had compilation errors
165 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
167 =item %s has too many errors
169 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
170 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
172 =item %s matches null string many times
174 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
175 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
177 =item %s never introduced
179 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
180 before it could possibly have been used.
182 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
184 (W) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a package-specific handler.
185 That name might have a meaning to Perl itself some day, even though it
186 doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a mixed-case attribute name, instead.
191 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
193 =item %s: Command not found
195 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
196 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
199 =item %s: Expression syntax
201 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
202 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
205 =item %s: Undefined variable
207 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
208 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
213 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
214 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
217 =item (in cleanup) %s
219 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
220 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
221 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
222 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
223 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
226 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
227 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
229 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
231 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
232 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
233 the previous line just because you saw this message.
235 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
237 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
238 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
240 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
242 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
243 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
245 =item C<-p> destination: %s
247 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
248 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
249 redirected it with select().)
251 =item 500 Server error
255 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
257 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
258 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
260 =item @ outside of string
262 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
263 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
265 =item <> should be quotes
267 (F) You wrote C<require E<lt>fileE<gt>> when you should have written
270 =item accept() on closed fd
272 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
273 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
275 =item Allocation too large: %lx
277 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
279 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
281 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
282 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
283 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
284 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
285 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
286 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
288 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
290 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
292 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
294 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
295 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
296 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
298 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
300 (W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
301 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
302 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
305 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
306 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
307 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
308 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
310 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
311 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
312 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">
315 =item Args must match #! line
317 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
318 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
319 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
320 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
322 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
324 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
325 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
326 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
328 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
330 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
331 is now heavily deprecated.
333 =item assertion botched: %s
335 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
337 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
339 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
341 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
343 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
344 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
345 know which context to supply to the right side.
347 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
349 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
350 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
353 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
355 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
356 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
357 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
358 that can no longer be found in the table.
360 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
362 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
363 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
364 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
365 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
368 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
370 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
372 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
374 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
375 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
376 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
377 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
378 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
379 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
381 =item Attempt to join self
383 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
384 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
385 need to move the join() to some other thread.
387 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
389 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
390 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
391 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
392 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
393 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
396 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
398 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
399 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
400 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
402 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
404 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
405 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
406 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
407 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
409 =item Bad filehandle: %s
411 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
412 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
413 did it in another package.
415 =item Bad free() ignored
417 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
418 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
419 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
421 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
422 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
423 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
428 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
430 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
432 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
433 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
436 =item Bad name after %s::
438 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
439 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
448 $sym = "mypack::$var";
450 =item Bad symbol for array
452 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
453 wasn't a symbol table entry.
455 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
457 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
458 wasn't a symbol table entry.
460 =item Bad symbol for hash
462 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
463 wasn't a symbol table entry.
465 =item Badly placed ()'s
467 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
468 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
471 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
473 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
474 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
475 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
477 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
479 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
480 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
481 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
483 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
485 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
486 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
488 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
490 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
491 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
492 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
493 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
494 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
496 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
498 (W) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
499 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
500 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
502 =item bind() on closed fd
504 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
505 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
507 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
509 (W) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
511 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
513 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
515 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
517 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
518 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
519 so it was truncated to the string shown.
521 =item Callback called exit
523 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
524 exited by calling exit.
526 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
528 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
529 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
530 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
531 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
533 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
535 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
536 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
538 =item Can't "last" outside a block
540 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
541 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
542 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
543 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
544 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
545 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
547 =item Can't "next" outside a block
549 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
550 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
551 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
552 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
553 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
555 =item Can't read CRTL environ
557 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
558 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
559 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
560 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
562 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
564 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
565 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
566 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
567 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
568 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
570 =item Can't bless non-reference value
572 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
573 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
575 =item Can't break at that line
577 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
578 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
581 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
583 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
584 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
585 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
587 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
589 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
590 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
591 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
592 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
594 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
596 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
597 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
598 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
599 Something like this will reproduce the error:
602 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
603 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
605 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
607 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
608 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
609 Something like this will reproduce the error:
612 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
613 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
615 =item Can't chdir to %s
617 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
618 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
620 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s"
622 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
624 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
626 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
627 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
637 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
639 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
641 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
642 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
644 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
646 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
647 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
649 =item Can't coerce array into hash
651 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
652 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
653 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
655 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
657 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
658 or other plumbing problems.
660 =item Can't declare %s in my
662 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
663 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
665 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
667 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
669 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
671 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
672 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
675 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
677 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
679 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
681 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
682 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
684 =item Can't do setegid!
686 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
689 =item Can't do seteuid!
691 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
693 =item Can't do setuid
695 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
696 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
697 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
698 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
699 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
700 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
702 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
704 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
705 without flags is emulated.
707 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
709 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
710 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
712 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
714 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
715 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
717 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
719 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
720 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
721 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
722 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
723 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
724 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
728 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
729 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
730 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
732 =item Can't execute %s
734 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
735 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
737 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
739 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
740 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
741 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
743 =item Can't find %s on PATH
745 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
748 =item Can't find label %s
750 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
751 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
753 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
755 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
756 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
757 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
759 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
761 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
762 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
763 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
767 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
769 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
771 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
772 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
773 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
774 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
775 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
776 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
777 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
778 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
779 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
780 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
781 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
782 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
783 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
784 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
786 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
788 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
789 can't retrieve its name for later use.
791 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
793 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
794 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
796 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
798 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
799 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
800 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
803 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
805 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
806 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
808 =item Can't localize through a reference
810 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
811 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
812 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
813 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
815 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
817 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
818 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
819 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
822 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
824 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
825 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
826 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
827 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
829 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
831 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
832 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
833 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
834 doing C<make install>.
836 =item Can't locate %s
838 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
839 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
840 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
841 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra
842 library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or
843 maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>
846 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
848 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
849 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
850 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
852 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
854 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
857 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
859 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
861 =item Can't modify %s in %s
863 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
864 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
866 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
868 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
871 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
873 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
876 =item Can't open %s: %s
878 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
879 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
880 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
881 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
884 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
886 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
887 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
888 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
889 and then read it in under a different file handle.
891 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
893 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
894 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
895 command line for writing.
897 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
899 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
900 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
902 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
904 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
905 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
908 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
910 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
911 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
913 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
915 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
917 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
919 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
920 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
921 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
922 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
924 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
926 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
927 you don't have write permission to the directory.
929 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
931 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
932 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
934 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
936 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
939 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
941 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
942 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
944 =item Can't stat script "%s"
946 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
947 it open already. Bizarre.
949 =item Can't swap uid and euid
951 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
954 =item Can't take log of %g
956 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
957 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
958 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
959 the negative numbers.
961 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
963 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
964 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
965 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
967 =item Can't undef active subroutine
969 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
970 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
971 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
975 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
976 as the main Perl stack.
978 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
980 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
981 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
982 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
983 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
985 =item Can't upgrade to undef
987 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
988 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
989 code calling sv_upgrade.
991 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
993 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
994 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
995 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
997 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
999 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1000 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
1001 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1002 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1005 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
1007 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
1008 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
1009 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
1011 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1013 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
1015 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1017 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1018 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1019 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1021 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
1023 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
1024 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
1025 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
1026 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
1027 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
1029 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
1031 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1032 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1034 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1036 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1037 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1039 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1041 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1042 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1044 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1046 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
1047 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
1048 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
1049 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1052 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1054 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1055 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1056 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1058 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1060 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1061 references can be weakened.
1063 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1065 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
1066 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1067 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1069 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
1071 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
1072 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
1074 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1076 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1077 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1078 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1080 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1082 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
1084 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1086 (W) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1087 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
1088 for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that the last two constructs
1089 are not currently implemented, they are placeholders for future extensions.
1091 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1093 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
1094 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
1095 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1096 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1097 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1099 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1101 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1102 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
1103 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1104 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1105 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1107 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
1109 (W) A novice will sometimes say
1111 chmod 777, $filename
1113 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1114 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1116 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1118 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1120 =item Compilation failed in require
1122 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1123 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1124 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1126 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1128 (W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1129 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1130 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1131 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1132 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1133 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1134 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1135 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1136 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1138 =item connect() on closed fd
1140 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1141 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1143 =item Constant is not %s reference
1145 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1146 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1147 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1148 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1149 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1151 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1153 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1154 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1157 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1159 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1160 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1163 =item constant(%s): %%^H is not localized
1165 (F) When setting compile-time-lexicalized hash %^H one should set the
1166 corresponding bit of $^H as well.
1168 =item constant(%s): %s
1170 (F) Compile-time-substitutions (such as overloaded constants and
1171 character names) were not correctly set up.
1173 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1175 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1177 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1179 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1181 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1183 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1184 expression compiler gave it.
1186 =item corrupted regexp program
1188 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1189 a valid magic number.
1191 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1193 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1194 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1195 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1196 case it indicates something else.
1198 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1200 (D) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
1201 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
1202 just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1204 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1206 (D) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
1207 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
1208 just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1210 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1212 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1213 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1214 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1216 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1218 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1220 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1222 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1223 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1227 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1228 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1230 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1232 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1233 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1234 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1235 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1236 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1237 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1238 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1239 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
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 Duplicate free() ignored
1252 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1255 =item elseif should be elsif
1257 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1258 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1259 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1260 unlikely to be what you want.
1262 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
1264 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1265 The interpreter is immediately exited.
1267 =item entering effective %s failed
1269 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1270 effective uids or gids failed.
1272 =item Error converting file specification %s
1274 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1275 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1276 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1277 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1278 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1280 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1282 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1283 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1284 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1286 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1288 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1289 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1290 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1292 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1294 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1295 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1296 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1297 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1298 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1299 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1301 =item Excessively long <> operator
1303 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1304 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1305 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1306 variable and glob that.
1308 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1310 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1312 =item Exiting eval via %s
1314 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1315 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1317 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1319 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1320 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1321 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1323 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1325 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1326 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1328 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1330 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1331 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1333 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1335 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1336 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1337 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1338 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1340 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1342 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1343 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1344 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1345 the Perl source code is distressed.
1347 =item fcntl is not implemented
1349 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1350 PDP-11 or something?
1352 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1354 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1355 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1356 the FileHandle package.
1358 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1360 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1361 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1362 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1363 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1366 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1368 (W) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
1369 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1370 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1371 you intended only to read from the file, use "E<lt>". See
1374 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1376 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1377 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1378 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1381 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1383 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1384 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1385 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1388 =item Format %s redefined
1390 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1394 eval "format NAME =...";
1397 =item Format not terminated
1399 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1400 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1402 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1412 (or something like that).
1414 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1416 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1418 =item gethostent not implemented
1420 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1421 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1424 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1426 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1427 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1429 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1431 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1432 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1434 =item Glob not terminated
1436 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1437 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1438 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1439 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1441 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1443 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1444 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1445 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1447 =item goto must have label
1449 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1450 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1452 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1454 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1455 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1456 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1458 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1460 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1461 is now heavily deprecated.
1463 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1465 (W) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1466 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1467 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1469 =item Identifier too long
1471 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1472 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1473 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1474 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1476 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1478 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1479 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1480 used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1482 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1484 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1485 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1486 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1489 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1491 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1492 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1493 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1495 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1496 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1497 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1498 properly converting the text file format.
1500 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1501 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1502 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1504 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1505 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1508 =item Illegal division by zero
1510 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1511 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1513 =item Illegal modulus zero
1515 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1516 don't take to this kindly.
1518 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1520 (F) You used a digit other than 0 and 1 in a binary number.
1522 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1524 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1526 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1528 (W) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1529 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1531 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1533 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1534 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1536 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1538 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f
1539 in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1540 before the illegal character.
1542 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1544 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1545 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1547 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1549 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1550 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1552 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1554 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1555 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1556 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1557 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1558 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1559 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1560 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1562 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1564 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1565 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1566 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1567 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1568 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1569 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1570 for more information.
1572 =item Insecure directory in %s
1574 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1575 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1578 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1580 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1581 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1582 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1583 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1584 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1586 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1588 (W) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either
1589 as a literal in your code or as a scalar is too big for your
1590 architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a
1591 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1592 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1593 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1594 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1595 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1598 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1600 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1601 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1602 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1603 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1604 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1605 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1606 and execute the specified command.
1608 =item internal disaster in regexp
1610 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1612 =item glob failed (%s)
1614 (W) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1615 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1616 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1617 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1618 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1619 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1620 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1621 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1622 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1623 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1626 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1628 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1630 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1632 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1633 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1635 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1637 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not recognized
1638 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1640 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1642 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1643 greater than the maximum character, or the range didn't start/end with
1644 a literal character. See L<perlre>.
1646 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1648 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1649 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1651 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1653 (F) Something other than a comma or whitespace was seen between the
1654 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute
1655 had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated
1656 too soon. See L<attributes>.
1658 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1660 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1661 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1664 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1666 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1667 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1670 =item ioctl is not implemented
1672 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1673 strange for a machine that supports C.
1675 =item junk on end of regexp
1677 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1679 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1681 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1682 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1683 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1685 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1687 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1688 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1691 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1693 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1694 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1697 =item leaving effective %s failed
1699 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1700 effective uids or gids failed.
1702 =item listen() on closed fd
1704 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1705 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1707 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1709 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1710 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1712 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1714 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1715 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1716 ended earlier on the current line.
1718 =item Misplaced _ in number
1720 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1722 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1724 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1725 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1726 one line to the next.
1728 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \C{}
1730 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\C{charname}> within
1731 double-quotish context.
1733 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1735 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1736 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1738 =item Missing command in piped open
1740 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1741 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1743 =item Missing operator before %s?
1745 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1746 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1748 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1750 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than
1751 closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place
1752 you were last editing.
1754 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1756 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1757 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1758 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1760 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1763 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1765 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1767 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1768 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1771 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1773 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1774 be created for some peculiar reason.
1776 =item Module name must be constant
1778 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1780 =item msg%s not implemented
1782 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1784 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1786 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1787 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1789 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1791 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that they
1792 have a name with which they can be found.
1794 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1796 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1797 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1798 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
1799 provided for just this purpose.
1801 =item Negative length
1803 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1804 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1806 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1808 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1809 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1811 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1812 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1816 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1817 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1819 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1821 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1822 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1823 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1826 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1828 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1830 =item No comma allowed after %s
1832 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1833 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1834 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1836 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1837 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1838 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1839 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1840 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1841 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1842 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1843 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1844 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1845 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1846 this error was triggered?
1848 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1850 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1851 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1852 want to pipe the output from this command.
1854 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1856 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1857 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1858 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1859 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1860 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1863 =item No dbm on this machine
1865 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1866 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1868 =item No DBsub routine
1870 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1871 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1872 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1873 ordinary subroutine call.
1875 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1877 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1878 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1879 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1881 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1883 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1884 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1885 from which to read data for stdin.
1887 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1889 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1890 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1891 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1893 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1895 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1896 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1897 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1899 =item No Perl script found in input
1901 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1902 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1904 =item No setregid available
1906 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1909 =item No setreuid available
1911 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1914 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1916 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1919 =item No such array field
1921 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
1922 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
1923 array indices for that to work.
1925 =item No such field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
1927 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
1928 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
1929 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
1930 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
1932 =item No such pipe open
1934 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1935 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1936 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1938 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1940 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1941 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1943 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
1945 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
1946 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
1947 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
1948 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
1951 =item Not a CODE reference
1953 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1954 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1955 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1956 See also L<perlref>.
1958 =item Not a format reference
1960 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1961 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1963 =item Not a GLOB reference
1965 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1966 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1967 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1968 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1970 =item Not a HASH reference
1972 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1973 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1974 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1976 =item Not a perl script
1978 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1979 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1982 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1984 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1985 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1986 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1988 =item Not a subroutine reference
1990 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1991 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1992 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1993 See also L<perlref>.
1995 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1997 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1998 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2000 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2002 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
2003 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2004 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2006 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2008 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2010 =item Not enough format arguments
2012 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
2015 =item Null filename used
2017 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
2018 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2020 =item Null picture in formline
2022 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2023 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2024 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2026 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2028 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
2032 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2034 =item NULL regexp argument
2036 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2038 =item NULL regexp parameter
2040 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2042 =item Number too long
2044 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
2045 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
2046 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
2047 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
2049 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2051 (W) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295)
2052 and therefore non-portable between systems. See L<perlport> for more
2053 on portability concerns.
2055 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2057 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2059 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
2060 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2062 =item Offset outside string
2064 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2065 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
2066 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
2067 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2071 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2075 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2077 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2079 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
2080 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
2081 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
2082 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
2083 true. See L<overload>.
2085 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2087 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
2088 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
2089 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
2090 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
2091 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
2093 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2095 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
2096 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
2098 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2100 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2101 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
2103 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2104 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2105 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
2106 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
2107 error is trappable I<once>.
2109 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2111 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2112 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2113 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
2114 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2116 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2118 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2119 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
2120 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2124 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
2127 =item panic: ck_grep
2129 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2131 =item panic: ck_split
2133 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2135 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2137 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
2138 are in the savestack.
2140 =item panic: del_backref
2142 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2147 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2148 it wasn't an eval context.
2150 =item panic: do_match
2152 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2154 =item panic: do_split
2156 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2158 =item panic: do_subst
2160 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2162 =item panic: do_trans
2164 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2168 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2172 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2173 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2175 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2177 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2179 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2181 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2183 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2185 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2189 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2190 it wasn't a block context.
2192 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2194 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
2196 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2198 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2199 invalid enum on the top of it.
2203 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2205 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2207 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2208 references to an object.
2210 =item panic: mapstart
2212 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2214 =item panic: null array
2216 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2218 =item panic: pad_alloc
2220 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2221 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2223 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2225 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2226 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2228 =item panic: pad_free po
2230 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2232 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2234 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2235 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2237 =item panic: pad_sv po
2239 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2241 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2243 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2244 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2246 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2248 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2250 =item panic: pp_iter
2252 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2254 =item panic: realloc
2256 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2258 =item panic: restartop
2260 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2261 didn't supply the destination.
2265 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2266 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2268 =item panic: scan_num
2270 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2272 =item panic: sv_insert
2274 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2277 =item panic: top_env
2279 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2283 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2285 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2287 (W) You said something like
2293 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2295 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2297 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2299 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2300 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2301 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2303 =item Permission denied
2305 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2307 =item pid %x not a child
2309 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2310 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2311 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2313 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2315 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2316 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2318 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2320 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2321 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2322 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2323 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2325 You probably wrote something like this:
2332 when you should have written this:
2339 If you really want comments, build your list the
2340 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2344 'b', # another comment
2347 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2349 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2350 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2351 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2354 You probably wrote something like this:
2358 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2359 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2363 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2365 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2366 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2367 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2368 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2370 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2372 (S) The old irregular construct
2376 is now misinterpreted as
2380 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2381 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2382 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2385 =item print on closed filehandle %s
2387 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2388 Check your logic flow.
2390 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
2392 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2393 Check your logic flow.
2395 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2397 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2398 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2399 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2403 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2405 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2406 or defined with a different function prototype.
2408 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2410 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2411 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2412 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2413 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2415 =item Read on closed filehandle %s
2417 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2418 Check your logic flow.
2420 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2422 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2424 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2426 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2427 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2428 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2430 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2432 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2433 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2435 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2437 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2438 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2440 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2442 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2443 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2444 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2445 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2447 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2448 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2449 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2450 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2452 =item Reference is already weak
2454 (W) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2455 Doing so has no effect.
2457 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2459 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2460 reference count of other than 1.
2462 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2464 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2465 could match an empty string.
2467 =item regexp memory corruption
2469 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2470 expression compiler gave it.
2472 =item regexp out of space
2474 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2476 =item Reversed %s= operator
2478 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2479 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2481 =item Runaway format
2483 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2484 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2485 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2486 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2487 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2489 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2491 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2492 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2493 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2494 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2495 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2496 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2498 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2499 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2500 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2503 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2505 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2506 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2507 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2508 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2509 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2510 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2512 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2513 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2514 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2517 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2519 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2520 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2522 =item Search pattern not terminated
2524 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2525 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2526 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2528 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2530 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2531 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2533 =item select not implemented
2535 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2537 =item sem%s not implemented
2539 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2541 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2543 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2544 that had previously been marked as free.
2546 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2548 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2549 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2551 =item Send on closed socket
2553 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2554 Check your logic flow.
2556 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2558 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2561 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2563 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2564 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2566 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2568 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2569 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2571 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2573 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2578 Also known as "500 Server error".
2580 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2582 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2583 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2584 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2585 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2586 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2587 for more information:
2589 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2590 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2591 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2592 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2593 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2595 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2597 =item setegid() not implemented
2599 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2600 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2603 =item seteuid() not implemented
2605 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2606 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2609 =item setrgid() not implemented
2611 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2612 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2615 =item setruid() not implemented
2617 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2618 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2621 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2623 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2624 because the world might have written on it already.
2626 =item shm%s not implemented
2628 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2630 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2632 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2634 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2636 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2637 put it into the wrong package?
2639 =item sort is now a reserved word
2641 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2642 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2644 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2646 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2647 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2648 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2650 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2652 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2653 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2655 =item split /^/ better written as split /^/m
2657 (W) Implicit translation of /^/ to mean /^/m in split is deprecated.
2661 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2662 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2663 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2665 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2667 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2668 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2670 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2672 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2673 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2674 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2675 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2678 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2680 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2681 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2682 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2683 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2684 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2686 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2688 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2689 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2692 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2694 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2698 eval "sub name { ... }";
2701 =item Substitution loop
2703 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2704 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2705 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2706 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2708 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2710 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2711 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2712 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2714 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2716 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2717 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2718 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2720 =item substr outside of string
2722 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2723 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2724 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2725 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2726 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2728 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2730 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2731 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2733 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2735 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2736 real and effective uids or gids.
2740 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2742 A keyword is misspelled.
2743 A semicolon is missing.
2745 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2746 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2747 A closing quote is missing.
2749 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2750 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2751 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2752 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2753 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2754 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2755 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2756 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2757 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2759 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2761 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2762 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2765 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2767 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2768 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2769 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2770 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2772 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2774 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2775 Check your logic flow.
2777 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2779 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2780 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2782 =item tell() on unopened file
2784 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2785 never opened or has since been closed.
2787 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2789 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2790 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2792 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2794 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2795 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2804 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2805 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2807 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2809 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2810 to the probings of Configure.
2812 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2814 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2815 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2816 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2817 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2820 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2822 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2823 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2824 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2826 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL eviron elements (%s)
2828 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2830 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2831 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2832 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2833 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2834 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
2835 %ENV which produced the warning.
2837 =item times not implemented
2839 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2840 you're not running on Unix.
2842 =item Too few args to syscall
2844 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2845 system call to call, silly dilly.
2847 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2849 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2850 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2851 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2852 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2855 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2856 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2857 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2858 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2860 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2861 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2863 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2865 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2866 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2867 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2873 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2874 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2877 =item Too many args to syscall
2879 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2881 =item Too many arguments for %s
2883 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2885 =item trailing \ in regexp
2887 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2890 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
2892 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2893 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
2894 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
2896 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
2898 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2901 =item truncate not implemented
2903 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2904 Configure knows about.
2906 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2908 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2909 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2910 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2911 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2913 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2915 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
2916 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2918 =item umask not implemented
2920 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
2921 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
2923 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2925 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2927 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2929 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2930 contexts were entered and left.
2932 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2934 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2935 values were temporarily localized.
2937 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2939 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2940 were entered and left.
2942 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2944 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2945 scalars were allocated and freed.
2947 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2949 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2950 another package? See L<perlform>.
2952 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2954 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2955 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2957 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2959 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2960 has since been undefined.
2962 =item Undefined subroutine called
2964 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2965 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2967 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2969 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2970 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2972 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2974 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2975 another package? See L<perlform>.
2977 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
2979 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
2980 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
2982 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2984 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2985 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2987 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2989 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2991 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
2993 (F) The second argument of 3-arguments open is not one from the list
2994 of C<L<lt>>, C<L<gt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<+L<lt>>, C<+L<gt>>,
2995 C<+E<gt>E<gt>>, C<-|>, C<|-> of possible open() modes.
2997 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
2999 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3000 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3001 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3002 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3004 =item unmatched () in regexp
3006 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3007 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
3008 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3010 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3012 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than
3013 opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket.
3014 As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the
3015 place you were last editing.
3017 =item unmatched [] in regexp
3019 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3020 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
3023 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3025 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
3026 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
3027 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
3029 =item Unrecognized character %s
3031 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3032 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3033 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3035 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3037 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
3040 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3042 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
3043 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
3045 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3047 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
3048 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
3049 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
3051 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3053 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
3054 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
3055 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3057 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3059 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3061 =item Unsupported function fork
3063 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3065 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
3066 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
3067 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3069 =item Unsupported function %s
3071 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3072 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3074 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3076 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3077 least that's what Configure thought.
3079 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
3081 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3082 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
3083 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
3084 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3086 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3088 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing an
3089 attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3090 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3091 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3093 =item Unterminated attribute list
3095 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start
3096 of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3097 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute
3098 too soon. See L<attributes>.
3100 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3102 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
3103 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3105 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3107 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
3108 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
3109 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
3110 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3112 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3114 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3115 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3117 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
3119 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
3120 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3122 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3124 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
3125 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
3126 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3128 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3130 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
3131 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
3132 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
3133 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
3135 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
3136 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
3137 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
3138 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
3139 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
3141 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3142 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
3143 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
3144 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
3146 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
3147 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3148 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3150 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3152 (D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
3153 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
3154 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
3155 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
3156 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
3157 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3159 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3161 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
3162 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
3165 =item Use of uninitialized value
3167 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
3168 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
3169 warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3171 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3173 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3175 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3177 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
3178 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
3179 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
3180 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
3181 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
3182 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
3186 when you meant to say
3188 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3190 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3191 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3196 when you should have said
3200 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3201 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3202 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3203 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3204 L<perlref> for more on this.
3206 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3208 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
3209 valid when C<untie> was called.
3211 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3213 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
3214 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
3215 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
3216 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
3217 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
3219 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3221 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3222 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3223 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3226 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3228 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
3229 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3230 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
3231 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
3232 on the front of your variable.
3234 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3236 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
3237 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
3238 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
3239 the outermost subroutine. For example:
3241 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3243 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3244 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
3245 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3246 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
3247 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
3248 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
3251 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
3252 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
3253 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
3254 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
3256 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3258 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
3259 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3261 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3262 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3263 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3264 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3265 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3266 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3268 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3269 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3270 will I<never> share the given variable.
3272 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3273 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3274 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3275 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3278 =item Variable syntax
3280 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3281 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3284 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3286 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3288 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3289 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3292 are supported and installed on your system.
3293 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3295 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3296 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3297 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3298 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3299 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3300 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3301 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3302 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3303 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3305 =item Warning: something's wrong
3307 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3308 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3310 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3312 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3313 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3315 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3317 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3318 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3319 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3320 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3324 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3328 but in actual fact, you got
3332 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3334 =item Write on closed filehandle %s
3336 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3337 Check your logic flow.
3339 =item X outside of string
3341 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3342 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3344 =item x outside of string
3346 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3347 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3349 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3351 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3353 =item Xsub called in sort
3355 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3357 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3359 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3360 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3361 Use a filename instead.
3363 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3365 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3366 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3367 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3368 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3370 =item You need to quote "%s"
3372 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3373 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3374 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3375 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3377 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
3379 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3380 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3381 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
3383 =item \1 better written as $1
3385 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3386 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3387 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3388 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3389 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3391 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3393 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3394 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3395 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3397 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3399 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3400 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3401 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3402 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3405 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3412 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3414 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3415 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3417 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3419 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3427 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3428 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3429 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3430 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3432 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3434 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3435 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3437 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3439 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3440 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3441 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3442 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"