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 (non-trappable).
17 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
18 be captured by setting C<$^Q> to a reference to a routine that will be
19 called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
20 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
23 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
24 just as in a printf format. Note that some message start with a %s!
25 The symbols C<"%-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
29 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
31 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
32 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
33 if you want to localize a package variable.
35 =item "no" not allowed in expression
37 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
38 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
40 =item "use" not allowed in expression
42 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
43 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
45 =item % may only be used in unpack
47 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, since the
48 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
49 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
51 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
53 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
54 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
55 found inside the parens. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
57 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
59 (F) The argument to delete() or exists() must be a hash element, such as
64 =item %s did not return a true value
66 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
67 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
68 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
69 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
71 =item %s found where operator expected
73 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
74 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
75 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
76 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
78 =item %s had compilation errors.
80 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
82 =item %s has too many errors.
84 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
85 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
87 =item %s matches null string many times
89 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
90 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
92 =item %s never introduced
94 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
95 before it could possibly have been used.
99 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
101 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
103 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
104 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
106 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
108 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
109 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
111 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
113 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
114 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
116 =item @ outside of string
118 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolution position outside
119 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
121 =item accept() on closed fd
123 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
124 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
126 =item Allocation too large: %lx
128 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
136 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
137 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
138 a missing quote, operator, paren pair or declaration.
140 =item Args must match #! line
142 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
143 with match the arguments specified on the #! line.
145 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric
147 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
148 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
149 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
151 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
153 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
154 is now heavily deprecated.
156 =item assertion botched: %s
158 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
160 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
162 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
164 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
166 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
167 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
168 know which context to supply to the right side.
170 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
172 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
173 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
176 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
178 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
179 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
180 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
181 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
184 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
186 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
188 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
190 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
191 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
192 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
193 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
194 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
195 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
197 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
199 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
200 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sized are, respectively,
201 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)> and
202 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
204 =item Bad associative array
206 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
208 =item Bad filehandle: %s
210 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
211 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
212 did it in another package.
214 =item Bad free() ignored
216 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
217 malloc()ed in the first place.
219 =item Bad name after %s::
221 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
222 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
231 $sym = "mypack::$var";
233 =item Bad symbol for array
235 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
236 wasn't a symbol table entry.
238 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
240 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
241 wasn't a symbol table entry.
243 =item Bad symbol for hash
245 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
246 wasn't a symbol table entry.
248 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
250 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
251 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
253 =item bind() on closed fd
255 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
256 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
258 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
260 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
262 =item Callback called exit
264 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
265 exited by calling exit.
267 =item Can't "last" outside a block
269 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
270 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
271 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
272 "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get the same
273 effect though, since the inner curlies will be considered a block
274 that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
276 =item Can't "next" outside a block
278 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
279 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
280 count as a "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get
281 the same effect though, since the inner curlies will be considered a block
282 that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
284 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
286 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
287 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
288 count as a "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get
289 the same effect though, since the inner curlies will be considered a block
290 that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
292 =item Can't bless non-reference value
294 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
295 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
297 =item Can't break at that line
299 (S) A warning intended for while running within the debugger, indicating
300 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
303 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
305 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
306 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
307 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
309 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
311 (F) A method call must know what package it's supposed to run in. It
312 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
313 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
314 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
316 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
318 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
319 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
320 neither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)
321 Something like this will reproduce the error:
324 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
325 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
327 =item Can't chdir to %s
329 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
330 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
332 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
334 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
335 (type GLOB), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
345 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
347 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
349 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
350 (type GLOB), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
352 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
354 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
355 (type GLOB), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
357 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
359 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
360 or other plumbing problems.
362 =item Can't declare %s in my
364 (F) Only scalar, array and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
365 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
367 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
369 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
371 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
373 (F) You're on a system such as MSDOS that gets confused if you try reading
374 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say B<-i>C<.bak>, or some
377 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s > 14 characters
379 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
381 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
383 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
384 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
386 =item Can't do setegid!
388 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
391 =item Can't do seteuid!
393 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
395 =item Can't do setuid
397 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
398 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
399 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
400 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
401 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
402 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
404 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
406 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
407 without flags is emulated.
409 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m
411 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
412 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
414 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
416 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
417 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
419 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
421 (W) An system(), exec() or piped open call could not execute the named
422 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
423 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
424 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
425 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
426 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
430 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
431 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
432 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
434 =item Can't execute %s
436 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
437 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions.
439 =item Can't find label %s
441 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
442 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
444 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
446 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
447 the closing delimiter was omitted. Since bracketed quotes count nesting
448 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
450 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.)
454 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
456 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
458 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
459 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
460 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
461 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
462 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
463 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
464 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
465 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
466 routine, since the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
467 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
468 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
469 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
470 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
471 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
473 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
475 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
476 can't retrieve its name for later use.
478 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
480 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
481 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
483 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
485 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
486 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
487 you should only be calling it out of an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
490 =item Can't localize a reference
492 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which is not allowed because
493 the compiler can't determine whether $ref will end up pointing to anything
494 with a symbol table entry, and a symbol table entry is necessary to
497 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
499 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previous declared as a
500 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
501 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
504 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
506 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
507 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set
508 the PERL5LIB environment variable to say where the extra library is,
509 or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
510 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
512 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
514 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
515 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
516 method, nor does any of it's base classes. See L<perlobj>.
518 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
520 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
525 (F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while trying to process
526 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
528 =item Can't modify %s in %s
530 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
531 change it, such as with an autoincrement.
533 =item Can't modify non-existent substring
535 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
538 =item Can't msgrcv to readonly var
540 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable in order to be used as a receive
543 =item Can't open %s: %s
545 (S) An inplace edit couldn't open the original file for the indicated reason.
546 Usually this is because you don't have read permission for the file.
548 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
550 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
551 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
552 "open2.pl". Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using ">",
553 and then read it in under a different file handle.
555 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
557 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
558 couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on the command line for
561 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
563 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
564 couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the command line for reading.
566 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
568 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
569 couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on the command line for
572 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
574 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
575 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
577 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
579 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
581 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
583 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
584 you don't have write permission to the directory.
586 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
588 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
589 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
591 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
593 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
596 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
598 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
599 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
601 =item Can't stat script "%s"
603 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
604 it open already. Bizarre.
606 =item Can't swap uid and euid
608 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
611 =item Can't take log of %g
613 (F) Logarithms are only defined on positive real numbers.
615 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
617 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
618 negative number. There's a Complex package available for Perl, though,
619 if you really want to do that.
621 =item Can't undef active subroutine
623 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
624 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
625 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
629 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
630 as the main Perl stack.
632 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
634 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
635 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
636 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
637 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
639 =item Can't upgrade to undef
641 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
642 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
643 code calling sv_upgrade.
645 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
647 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
649 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
651 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
652 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
653 test the type of the reference, if need be.
655 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
657 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
658 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
659 to a matched substring is only valid as part of a regular expression pattern.
660 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
661 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
663 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
665 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
666 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
668 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
670 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
671 be a defined value. This helps to de-lurk some insidious errors.
673 =item Can't use delimiter brackets within expression
675 (F) The ${name} construct is for disambiguating identifiers in strings, not
678 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
680 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
681 not allowed, because the magic can only be tied to one location (namely
682 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
683 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
686 =item Can't use subscript on %s
688 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
689 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
690 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
692 =item Can't write to temp file for B<-e>: %s
694 (F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
695 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
697 =item Can't x= to readonly value
699 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
700 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
701 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
703 =item Cannot open temporary file
705 (F) The create routine failed for some reaon while trying to process
706 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
708 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
710 (W) A novice will sometimes say
714 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
715 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
717 =item Close on unopened file <%s>
719 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
721 =item connect() on closed fd
723 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
724 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
726 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
728 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
730 =item corrupted regexp pointers
732 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
733 expression compiler gave it.
735 =item corrupted regexp program
737 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
738 a valid magic number.
740 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
742 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
743 times than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
744 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
745 case it indicates something else.
747 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
749 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
751 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
753 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
754 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
756 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
758 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
759 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
760 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
761 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
762 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
763 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
764 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
765 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
768 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
770 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
772 =item do_study: out of memory
774 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
776 =item Duplicate free() ignored
778 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
781 =item elseif should be elsif
783 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
784 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
785 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
786 unlikely to be what you want.
788 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
790 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
791 The interpreter is immediately exited.
793 =item Error converting file specification %s
795 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Since Perl may have to deal with file
796 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
797 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
798 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
799 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
801 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
803 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
805 =item Exiting eval via %s
807 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
808 a goto, or a loop control statement.
810 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
812 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as a
813 a goto, or a loop control statement.
815 =item Exiting substitution via %s
817 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as a
818 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
820 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
822 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
823 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
824 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
825 the Perl source code is distressed.
827 =item fcntl is not implemented
829 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
832 =item Filehandle %s never opened
834 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
835 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
836 the FileHandle package.
838 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
840 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
841 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
842 "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you only
843 intended to write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
845 =item Filehandle only opened for input
847 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
848 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
849 "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you only
850 intended to write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
852 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
854 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
855 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
856 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
859 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
861 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
862 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
863 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
866 =item Format %s redefined
868 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
872 eval "format NAME =...";
875 =item Format not terminated
877 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
878 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
880 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
890 (or something like that).
892 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
894 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
896 =item gethostent not implemented
898 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
899 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
902 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
904 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
905 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
907 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
909 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
910 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
913 =item Glob not terminated
915 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
916 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
917 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
918 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
920 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
922 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables must
923 either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
924 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
926 =item goto must have label
928 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
929 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
931 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
933 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
934 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
935 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
937 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
939 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
940 is now heavily deprecated.
942 =item Identifier "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
944 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique identifiers. If you
945 had a good reason for having a unique identifier, then just mention it
946 again somehow to suppress the message.
948 =item Illegal division by zero
950 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
951 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
953 =item Illegal modulus zero
955 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
956 don't take to this kindly.
958 =item Illegal octal digit
960 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
962 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
964 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
965 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
967 =item Insecure dependency in %s
969 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
970 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
971 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
972 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
973 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
974 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
975 for more information.
977 =item Insecure directory in %s
979 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
980 script if $ENV{PATH} contains a directory that is writable by the world.
985 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
986 setgid script if $ENV{PATH} is derived from data supplied (or
987 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
988 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
990 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
992 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
993 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, in order to determine
994 whether the current call to C<exec> should be affect the current
995 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
996 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
997 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
998 and execute the specified command.
1000 =item internal disaster in regexp
1002 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1004 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1006 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1008 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1010 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1011 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1013 =item ioctl is not implemented
1015 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1016 strange for a machine that supports C.
1018 =item junk on end of regexp
1020 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1022 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1024 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1025 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1026 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1028 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1030 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1031 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1034 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1036 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1037 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1040 =item listen() on closed fd
1042 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1043 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1045 =item Literal @%s now requires backslash
1047 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1048 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was
1049 first used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and
1050 ambiguous instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by putting a
1051 backslash to indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array
1052 within the program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply
1053 assume that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1055 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1057 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1058 doesn't somehow point to a valid method. See L<perlovl>.
1060 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1062 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1063 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1064 ended earlier on the current line.
1066 =item Misplaced _ in number
1068 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1070 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1072 (F) Apparently you've been programming in csh too much. Variables are always
1073 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1074 one line to the next.
1076 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1078 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1079 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1081 =item Missing operator before %s?
1083 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1084 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1086 =item Missing right bracket
1088 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1089 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1092 =item Missing semicolon on previous line?
1094 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1095 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1096 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1098 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1100 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1101 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", since the compiler
1102 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1104 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1107 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1109 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1111 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1112 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1115 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1117 (F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1118 be created for some peculiar reason.
1120 =item Module name must be constant
1122 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1124 =item msg%s not implemented
1126 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1128 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1130 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like $foo[1,2,3]. They're written
1131 like $foo[1][2][3], as in C.
1133 =item Negative length
1135 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1136 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1138 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1140 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parens. So
1141 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1143 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, *?, +? and ?? appear
1144 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1148 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1149 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1151 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1153 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1154 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1155 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1158 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1160 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1162 =item No comma allowed after %s
1164 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1165 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1166 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1168 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1170 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1171 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither you
1172 want to pipe the output from this command.
1174 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1176 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1177 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1178 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1179 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1180 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1183 =item No dbm on this machine
1185 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1186 supply dbm nowadays, since Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1188 =item No DBsub routine
1190 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1191 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1192 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1193 ordinary subroutine call.
1195 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
1197 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1198 and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the
1199 file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1201 =item No input file after < on command line
1203 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1204 and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file from
1205 which to read data for stdin.
1207 =item No output file after > on command line
1209 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1210 and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither
1211 you wanted to redirect stdout.
1213 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
1215 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1216 and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the
1217 file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1219 =item No Perl script found in input
1221 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1222 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1224 =item No setregid available
1226 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1229 =item No setreuid available
1231 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1234 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1236 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1239 =item No such pipe open
1241 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1242 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1243 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1245 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1247 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1248 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1250 =item Not a CODE reference
1252 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1253 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1254 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1255 See also L<perlref>.
1257 =item Not a format reference
1259 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1260 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1262 =item Not a GLOB reference
1264 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "type glob" (that is,
1265 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1266 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1267 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1269 =item Not a HASH reference
1271 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1272 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1273 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1275 =item Not a perl script
1277 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1278 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1281 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1283 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1284 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1285 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1287 =item Not a subroutine reference
1289 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1290 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1291 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1292 See also L<perlref>.
1294 =item Not a subroutine reference in %OVERLOAD
1296 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1297 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<perlovl>.
1299 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1301 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1302 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1303 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1305 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1307 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1309 =item Not enough format arguments
1311 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1314 =item Null filename used
1316 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially since on many machines
1317 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1319 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1321 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1325 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1327 =item NULL regexp argument
1329 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it bigtime.
1331 =item NULL regexp parameter
1333 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1335 =item Odd number of elements in hash list
1337 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash list, which is odd,
1338 since hash lists come in key/value pairs.
1342 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1346 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1348 =item Operation `%s' %s: no method found,
1350 (F) An attempt was made to use an entry in an overloading table that
1351 somehow no longer points to a valid method. See L<perlovl>.
1353 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1355 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1356 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1357 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1358 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1359 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1361 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1363 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1364 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1366 =item Out of memory!
1368 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1369 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1373 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1376 =item panic: ck_grep
1378 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1380 =item panic: ck_split
1382 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1384 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1386 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1387 are in the savestack.
1391 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1392 it wasn't an eval context.
1394 =item panic: do_match
1396 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1398 =item panic: do_split
1400 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1402 =item panic: do_subst
1404 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1406 =item panic: do_trans
1408 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1412 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1413 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1415 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1417 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1419 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1421 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1425 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1426 it wasn't a block context.
1428 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1430 (P) A writable lexical variable became readonly somehow within the scope.
1432 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1434 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1435 invalid enum on the top of it.
1439 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1441 =item panic: mapstart
1443 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1445 =item panic: null array
1447 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1449 =item panic: pad_alloc
1451 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1452 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1454 =item panic: pad_free curpad
1456 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1457 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1459 =item panic: pad_free po
1461 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1463 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
1465 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1466 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1468 =item panic: pad_sv po
1470 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1472 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1474 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1475 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1477 =item panic: pad_swipe po
1479 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1481 =item panic: pp_iter
1483 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1485 =item panic: realloc
1487 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1489 =item panic: restartop
1491 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1492 didn't supply the destination.
1496 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1497 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
1499 =item panic: scan_num
1501 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
1503 =item panic: sv_insert
1505 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
1508 =item panic: top_env
1510 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
1514 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
1516 =item Parens missing around "%s" list
1518 (W) You said something like
1524 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
1526 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
1528 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
1530 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
1531 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
1532 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
1534 =item Permission denied
1536 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
1538 =item pid %d not a child
1540 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
1541 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
1542 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
1544 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
1546 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
1547 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
1549 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
1551 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
1552 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
1553 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
1554 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
1556 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
1558 (S) The old irregular construct
1562 is now misinterpreted as
1566 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
1567 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
1568 parens around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead of "||".
1570 =item print on closed filehandle %s
1572 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
1573 Check your logic flow.
1575 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
1577 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1578 Check your logic flow.
1580 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
1582 (W) The compiler found a bare word where it expected a conditional,
1583 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
1584 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
1588 =item Prototype mismatch: (%s) vs (%s)
1590 (S) The subroutine being defined had a predeclared (forward) declaration
1591 with a different function prototype.
1593 =item Read on closed filehandle <%s>
1595 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
1596 Check your logic flow.
1598 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
1600 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
1602 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
1604 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
1605 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
1606 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
1608 =item Recursive inheritance detected
1610 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
1611 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
1613 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
1615 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
1616 reference count of other than 1.
1618 =item regexp memory corruption
1620 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1621 expression compiler gave it.
1623 =item regexp out of space
1625 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
1627 =item regexp too big
1629 (F) The current implementation of regular expression uses shorts as
1630 address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
1631 the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
1632 Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
1633 way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
1635 =item Reversed %s= operator
1637 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
1638 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
1640 =item Runaway format
1642 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
1643 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
1644 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
1645 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
1646 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
1648 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
1650 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single value of
1651 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1652 The difference is that $foo[&bar] always behaves like a scalar, both when
1653 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while @foo[&bar] behaves
1654 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1655 subscript, which can do weird things if you're only expecting one subscript.
1657 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
1658 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, since
1659 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1662 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
1664 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script with its setuid
1665 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
1667 =item Search pattern not terminated
1669 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
1670 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1672 =item seek() on unopened file
1674 (W) You tried to use the seek() function on a filehandle that was either
1675 never opened or has been closed since.
1677 =item select not implemented
1679 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
1681 =item sem%s not implemented
1683 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
1685 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
1687 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
1688 that had previously been marked as free.
1690 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
1692 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
1693 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
1695 =item Send on closed socket
1697 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
1698 Check your logic flow.
1700 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
1702 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
1703 parenthesis. Embedded parens aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
1705 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
1707 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
1708 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
1710 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
1712 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
1715 =item setegid() not implemented
1717 (F) You tried to assign to $), and your operating system doesn't support
1718 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1721 =item seteuid() not implemented
1723 (F) You tried to assign to $>, and your operating system doesn't support
1724 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1727 =item setrgid() not implemented
1729 (F) You tried to assign to $(, and your operating system doesn't support
1730 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1733 =item setruid() not implemented
1735 (F) You tried to assign to $<, and your operating system doesn't support
1736 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1739 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
1741 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
1742 because the world might have written on it already.
1744 =item shm%s not implemented
1746 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
1748 =item shutdown() on closed fd
1750 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
1752 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined.
1754 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
1755 put it into the wrong package?
1757 =item sort is now a reserved word
1759 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
1760 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
1762 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
1764 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
1765 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
1766 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1768 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
1770 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
1771 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1775 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
1776 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
1777 See L<perlfunc/split>.
1779 =item Stat on unopened file <%s>
1781 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
1782 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has been closed since.
1784 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
1786 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
1787 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
1788 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
1789 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
1792 =item Subroutine %s redefined
1794 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
1798 eval "sub name { ... }";
1801 =item Substitution loop
1803 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
1804 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
1805 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
1806 L<perlop/"Quote and Quotelike Operators">.
1808 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
1810 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
1811 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1813 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
1815 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
1816 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1818 =item substr outside of string
1820 (W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a string.
1821 That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the length of
1822 the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
1824 =item suidperl is no longer needed since...
1826 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
1827 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
1831 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
1833 A keyword is misspelled.
1834 A semicolon is missing.
1836 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
1837 An opening or closing brace is missing.
1838 A closing quote is missing.
1840 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
1841 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
1842 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
1843 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
1844 before this, since Perl is good at understanding random input.
1845 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
1846 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
1847 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
1848 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
1850 =item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
1852 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm"
1853 or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
1855 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
1857 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1858 Check your logic flow.
1860 =item tell() on unopened file
1862 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
1863 never opened or has been closed since.
1865 =item Test on unopened file <%s>
1867 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
1868 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
1870 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
1872 (F) Assignment to $[ is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
1873 a compiler directive. You may only say one of
1882 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
1883 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
1885 =item The %s function is unimplemented
1887 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
1888 to the probings of Configure.
1890 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
1892 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
1893 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
1894 think the U.S. Govermnment thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
1895 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
1898 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
1900 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
1901 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
1902 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
1904 =item times not implemented
1906 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
1907 you're not running on Unix.
1909 =item Too few args to syscall
1911 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
1912 system call to call, silly dilly.
1914 =item Too many args to syscall
1916 (F) Perl only supports a maximum of 14 args to syscall().
1918 =item Too many arguments for %s
1920 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
1922 =item trailing \ in regexp
1924 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
1927 =item Translation pattern not terminated
1929 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
1932 =item Translation replacement not terminated
1934 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
1937 =item truncate not implemented
1939 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
1940 Configure knows about.
1942 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
1944 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
1945 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or @{EXPR}. Hashes must be
1946 %NAME or %{EXPR}. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
1947 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
1949 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
1951 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, since octal literals
1952 always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
1954 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
1956 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
1958 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
1960 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
1961 contexts were entered and left.
1963 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
1965 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
1966 values were temporarily localized.
1968 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
1970 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
1971 were entered and left.
1973 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
1975 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
1976 scalars were allocated and freed.
1978 =item Undefined format "%s" called
1980 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
1981 another package? See L<perlform>.
1983 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
1985 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
1986 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1988 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
1990 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
1991 has since been undefined.
1993 =item Undefined subroutine called
1995 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
1996 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
1998 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2000 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2001 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2003 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2005 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2006 another package? See L<perlform>.
2008 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2010 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2011 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2013 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2015 (F) There are no byteswapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2017 =item unmatched () in regexp
2019 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2020 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2021 the matching paren. See L<perlre>.
2023 =item Unmatched right bracket
2025 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2026 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2027 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2030 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2032 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2033 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2036 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2038 (W) You used a bare word that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2039 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2040 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2042 =item Unrecognized character \%03o ignored
2044 (S) A garbage character was found in the input, and ignored, in case it's
2045 a weird control character on an EBCDIC machine, or some such.
2047 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2049 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2050 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2052 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s
2054 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2055 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2056 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2058 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2060 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2061 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2062 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chop>.
2064 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2066 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2068 =item Unsupported function %s
2070 (F) This machines doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2071 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2073 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2075 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2076 least that's what Configure thought.
2078 =item Unterminated <> operator
2080 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2081 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2082 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2083 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2085 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2087 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined awk feature.
2088 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2090 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2092 (D) This variable magically turned on multiline pattern matching, both for
2093 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2094 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2095 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2097 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2099 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible only
2100 from C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2102 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2104 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2105 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2108 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
2110 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2111 wish to use a blank line as the terminator of the here-document.
2113 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2115 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2116 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2117 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2119 =item Use of uninitialized value
2121 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2122 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2123 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2125 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2127 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2128 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2129 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2130 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2131 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2132 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2136 when you meant to say
2138 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2140 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2141 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2146 when you should have said
2150 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2151 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2152 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2153 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2154 L<perlref> for more on this.
2156 =item Variable "%s" is not exported
2158 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2159 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2160 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2161 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2162 on the front of your variable.
2164 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly.
2166 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
2167 close(0. This usually indicates your filesystem ran out of disk space.
2169 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parens is ambiguous
2171 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2172 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2173 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2174 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2178 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
2182 but in actual fact, you got
2186 So put in parens to say what you really mean.
2188 =item Write on closed filehandle
2190 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2191 Check your logic flow.
2193 =item X outside of string
2195 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
2196 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2198 =item x outside of string
2200 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
2201 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2203 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
2205 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2207 =item Xsub called in sort
2209 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2211 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
2213 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
2214 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
2215 Use a filename instead.
2217 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
2219 (F) And you probably never will, since you probably don't have the
2220 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
2221 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
2222 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
2224 =item You need to quote "%s"
2226 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
2227 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
2228 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
2229 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
2231 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
2233 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
2234 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2235 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2237 =item \1 better written as $1
2239 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
2240 of backslashes is grandfathered on the righthand side of a
2241 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
2242 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
2243 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
2245 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
2247 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2248 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
2249 '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
2251 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
2253 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2254 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
2255 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
2256 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
2259 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";