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<warning> 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" variable %s can't be in a package
35 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
36 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
37 if you want to localize a package variable.
39 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
41 (W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
42 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
43 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
44 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
47 =item "no" not allowed in expression
49 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
50 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
52 =item "use" not allowed in expression
54 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
55 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
57 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
62 =item # cannot take a count
64 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
65 but you have also specified an explicit size for the string.
68 =item # must be followed by a, A or Z
70 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
71 which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z
72 to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked.
75 =item # must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
77 (F) You had an pack template indicating a counted-length string,
78 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*.
81 =item # must follow a numeric type
83 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#',
84 but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.
87 =item % may only be used in unpack
89 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
90 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
91 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
93 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
95 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
96 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
97 C<'>-delimited regular expression.
99 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
101 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
102 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
103 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
105 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
107 (W) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a
108 definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call
109 conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype
110 declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine
111 definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively,
112 if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put
113 an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L<perlsub>.
115 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
117 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
120 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
122 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
124 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
127 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
129 or a hash slice, such as
131 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
132 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
134 =item %s did not return a true value
136 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
137 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
138 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
139 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
141 =item %s found where operator expected
143 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
144 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
145 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
146 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
148 =item %s had compilation errors
150 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
152 =item %s has too many errors
154 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
155 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
157 =item %s matches null string many times
159 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
160 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
162 =item %s never introduced
164 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
165 before it could possibly have been used.
169 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
171 =item %s: Command not found
173 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
174 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
177 =item %s: Expression syntax
179 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
180 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
183 =item %s: Undefined variable
185 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
186 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
191 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
192 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
195 =item (in cleanup) %s
197 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
198 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
199 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
200 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
201 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
204 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
205 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
207 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
209 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
210 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
211 the previous line just because you saw this message.
213 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
215 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
216 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
218 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
220 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
221 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
223 =item C<-p> destination: %s
225 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
226 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
227 redirected it with select().)
229 =item 500 Server error
233 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
235 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
236 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
238 =item @ outside of string
240 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
241 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
243 =item <> should be quotes
245 (F) You wrote C<require E<lt>fileE<gt>> when you should have written
248 =item accept() on closed fd
250 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
251 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
253 =item Allocation too large: %lx
255 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
257 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
259 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
260 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
261 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
262 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
263 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
264 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
266 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
268 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
270 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
272 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
273 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
274 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
276 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
278 (W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
279 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
280 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
283 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
284 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
285 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
286 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
288 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
289 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
290 to be an object method (see L<attrs>).
292 =item Args must match #! line
294 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
295 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
296 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
297 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
299 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
301 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
302 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
303 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
305 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
307 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
308 is now heavily deprecated.
310 =item assertion botched: %s
312 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
314 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
316 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
318 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
320 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
321 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
322 know which context to supply to the right side.
324 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
326 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
327 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
330 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
332 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
333 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
334 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
335 that can no longer be found in the table.
337 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
339 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
340 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
341 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
342 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
345 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
347 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
349 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
351 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
352 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
353 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
354 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
355 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
356 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
358 =item Attempt to join self
360 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
361 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
362 need to move the join() to some other thread.
364 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
366 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
367 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
368 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
369 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
370 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
373 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
375 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
376 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
377 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
379 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
381 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
382 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
383 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
384 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
386 =item Bad filehandle: %s
388 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
389 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
390 did it in another package.
392 =item Bad free() ignored
394 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
395 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
396 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
398 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
399 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
400 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
405 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
407 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
409 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
410 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
413 =item Bad name after %s::
415 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
416 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
425 $sym = "mypack::$var";
427 =item Bad symbol for array
429 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
430 wasn't a symbol table entry.
432 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
434 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
435 wasn't a symbol table entry.
437 =item Bad symbol for hash
439 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
440 wasn't a symbol table entry.
442 =item Badly placed ()'s
444 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
445 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
448 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
450 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
451 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
452 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
454 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
456 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
457 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
458 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
460 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
462 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
463 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
465 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
467 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
468 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
469 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
470 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
471 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
473 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
475 (W) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
476 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
477 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
479 =item bind() on closed fd
481 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
482 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
484 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
486 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
488 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
490 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
491 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
492 so it was truncated to the string shown.
494 =item Callback called exit
496 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
497 exited by calling exit.
499 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
501 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
502 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
503 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
504 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
506 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
508 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
509 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
511 =item Can't "last" outside a block
513 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
514 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
515 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
516 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
517 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
518 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
520 =item Can't "next" outside a block
522 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
523 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
524 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
525 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
526 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
528 =item Can't read CRTL environ
530 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
531 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
532 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
533 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
535 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
537 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
538 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
539 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
540 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
541 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
543 =item Can't bless non-reference value
545 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
546 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
548 =item Can't break at that line
550 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
551 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
554 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
556 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
557 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
558 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
560 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
562 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
563 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
564 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
565 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
567 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
569 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
570 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
571 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
572 Something like this will reproduce the error:
575 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
576 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
578 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
580 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
581 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
582 Something like this will reproduce the error:
585 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
586 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
588 =item Can't chdir to %s
590 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
591 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
593 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s"
595 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
597 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
599 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
600 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
610 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
612 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
614 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
615 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
617 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
619 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
620 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
622 =item Can't coerce array into hash
624 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
625 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
626 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
628 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
630 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
631 or other plumbing problems.
633 =item Can't declare %s in my
635 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
636 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
638 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
640 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
642 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
644 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
645 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
648 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
650 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
652 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
654 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
655 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
657 =item Can't do setegid!
659 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
662 =item Can't do seteuid!
664 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
666 =item Can't do setuid
668 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
669 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
670 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
671 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
672 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
673 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
675 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
677 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
678 without flags is emulated.
680 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
682 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
683 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
685 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
687 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
688 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
690 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
692 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
693 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
694 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
695 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
696 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
697 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
701 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
702 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
703 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
705 =item Can't execute %s
707 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
708 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
710 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
712 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
713 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
714 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
716 =item Can't find %s on PATH
718 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
721 =item Can't find label %s
723 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
724 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
726 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
728 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
729 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
730 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
732 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
734 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
735 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
736 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
740 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
742 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
744 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
745 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
746 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
747 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
748 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
749 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
750 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
751 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
752 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
753 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
754 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
755 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
756 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
757 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
759 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
761 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
762 can't retrieve its name for later use.
764 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
766 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
767 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
769 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
771 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
772 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
773 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
776 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
778 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
779 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
781 =item Can't localize through a reference
783 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
784 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
785 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
786 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
788 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
790 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
791 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
792 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
795 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
797 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
798 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
799 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
800 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
802 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
804 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
805 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
806 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
807 doing C<make install>.
809 =item Can't locate %s
811 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
812 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
813 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
814 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra
815 library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or
816 maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>
819 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
821 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
822 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
823 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
825 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
827 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
830 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
832 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
834 =item Can't modify %s in %s
836 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
837 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
839 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
841 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
844 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
846 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
849 =item Can't open %s: %s
851 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
852 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
853 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
854 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
857 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
859 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
860 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
861 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
862 and then read it in under a different file handle.
864 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
866 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
867 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
868 command line for writing.
870 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
872 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
873 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
875 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
877 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
878 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
881 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
883 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
884 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
886 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
888 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
890 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
892 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
893 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
894 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
895 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
897 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
899 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
900 you don't have write permission to the directory.
902 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
904 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
905 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
907 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
909 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
912 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
914 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
915 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
917 =item Can't stat script "%s"
919 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
920 it open already. Bizarre.
922 =item Can't swap uid and euid
924 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
927 =item Can't take log of %g
929 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
930 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
931 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
932 the negative numbers.
934 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
936 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
937 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
938 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
940 =item Can't undef active subroutine
942 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
943 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
944 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
948 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
949 as the main Perl stack.
951 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
953 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
954 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
955 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
956 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
958 =item Can't upgrade to undef
960 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
961 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
962 code calling sv_upgrade.
964 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
966 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
967 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
968 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
970 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
972 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
973 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
974 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
975 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
978 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
980 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
981 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
982 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
984 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
986 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
988 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
990 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
991 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
992 test the type of the reference, if need be.
994 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
996 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
997 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
998 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
999 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
1000 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
1002 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
1004 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1005 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1007 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1009 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1010 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1012 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1014 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1015 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1017 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1019 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
1020 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
1021 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
1022 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1025 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1027 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1028 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1029 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1031 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1033 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1034 references can be weakened.
1036 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1038 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
1039 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1040 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1042 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
1044 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
1045 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
1047 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1049 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1050 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1051 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1053 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1055 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
1057 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1059 (W) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1060 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
1061 for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that the last two constructs
1062 are not currently implemented, they are placeholders for future extensions.
1064 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1066 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
1067 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
1068 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1069 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1070 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1072 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1074 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1075 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
1076 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1077 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1078 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1080 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
1082 (W) A novice will sometimes say
1084 chmod 777, $filename
1086 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1087 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1089 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1091 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1093 =item Compilation failed in require
1095 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1096 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1097 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1099 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1101 (W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1102 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1103 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1104 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1105 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1106 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1107 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1108 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1109 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1111 =item connect() on closed fd
1113 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1114 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1116 =item Constant is not %s reference
1118 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1119 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1120 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1121 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1122 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1124 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1126 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1127 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1130 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1132 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1133 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1136 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1138 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1140 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1142 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1144 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1146 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1147 expression compiler gave it.
1149 =item corrupted regexp program
1151 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1152 a valid magic number.
1154 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1156 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1157 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1158 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1159 case it indicates something else.
1161 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1163 (D) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
1164 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
1165 just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1167 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1169 (D) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
1170 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
1171 just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1173 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1175 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1176 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1177 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1179 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1181 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1183 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1185 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1186 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1190 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1191 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1193 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1195 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1196 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1197 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1198 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1199 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1200 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1201 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1202 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1205 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1207 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1209 =item do_study: out of memory
1211 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1213 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1215 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1218 =item elseif should be elsif
1220 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1221 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1222 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1223 unlikely to be what you want.
1225 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
1227 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1228 The interpreter is immediately exited.
1230 =item entering effective %s failed
1232 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1233 effective uids or gids failed.
1235 =item Error converting file specification %s
1237 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1238 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1239 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1240 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1241 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1243 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1245 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1246 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1247 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1249 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1251 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1252 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1253 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1255 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1257 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1258 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1259 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1260 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1261 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1262 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1264 =item Excessively long <> operator
1266 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1267 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1268 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1269 variable and glob that.
1271 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1273 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1275 =item Exiting eval via %s
1277 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1278 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1280 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1282 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1283 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1284 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1286 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1288 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1289 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1291 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1293 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1294 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1296 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1298 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1299 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1300 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1301 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1303 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1305 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1306 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1307 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1308 the Perl source code is distressed.
1310 =item fcntl is not implemented
1312 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1313 PDP-11 or something?
1315 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1317 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1318 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1319 the FileHandle package.
1321 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1323 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1324 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1325 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1326 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1329 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1331 (W) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
1332 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1333 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1334 you intended only to read from the file, use "E<lt>". See
1337 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1339 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1340 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1341 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1344 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1346 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1347 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1348 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1351 =item Format %s redefined
1353 (W) You redefined a format, perhaps accidentally. To suppress this warning,
1358 eval "format NAME =...";
1361 =item Format not terminated
1363 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1364 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1366 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1376 (or something like that).
1378 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1380 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1382 =item gethostent not implemented
1384 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1385 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1388 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1390 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1391 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1393 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1395 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1396 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1398 =item Glob not terminated
1400 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1401 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1402 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1403 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1405 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1407 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1408 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1409 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1411 =item goto must have label
1413 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1414 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1416 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1418 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1419 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1420 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1422 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1424 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1425 is now heavily deprecated.
1427 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1429 (W) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1430 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1431 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1433 =item Identifier too long
1435 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1436 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1437 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1438 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1440 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1442 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1443 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1444 used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1446 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1448 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1449 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1450 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1453 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1455 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1456 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1457 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1459 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1460 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1461 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1462 properly converting the text file format.
1464 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1465 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1466 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1468 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1469 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1472 =item Illegal division by zero
1474 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1475 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1477 =item Illegal modulus zero
1479 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1480 don't take to this kindly.
1482 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1484 (F) You used a digit other than 0 and 1 in a binary number.
1486 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1488 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1490 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1492 (W) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1493 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1495 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1497 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1498 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1500 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1502 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f
1503 in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1504 before the illegal character.
1506 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1508 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1509 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1511 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1513 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1514 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1515 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1516 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1517 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1518 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1519 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1521 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1523 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1524 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1525 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1526 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1527 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1528 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1529 for more information.
1531 =item Insecure directory in %s
1533 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1534 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1537 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1539 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1540 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1541 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1542 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1543 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1545 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1547 (W) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either
1548 as a literal in your code or as a scalar is too big for your
1549 architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a
1550 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1551 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1552 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1553 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1554 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1557 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1559 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1560 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1561 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1562 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1563 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1564 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1565 and execute the specified command.
1567 =item internal disaster in regexp
1569 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1571 =item glob failed (%s)
1573 (W) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1574 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1575 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1576 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1577 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1578 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1579 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1580 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1581 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1582 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1585 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1587 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1589 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1591 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1592 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1594 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1596 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1597 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1599 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1601 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1602 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1605 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1607 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1608 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1611 =item ioctl is not implemented
1613 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1614 strange for a machine that supports C.
1616 =item junk on end of regexp
1618 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1620 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1622 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1623 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1624 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1626 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1628 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1629 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1632 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1634 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1635 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1638 =item leaving effective %s failed
1640 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1641 effective uids or gids failed.
1643 =item listen() on closed fd
1645 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1646 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1648 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1650 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1651 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1653 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1655 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1656 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1657 ended earlier on the current line.
1659 =item Misplaced _ in number
1661 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1663 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1665 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1666 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1667 one line to the next.
1669 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1671 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1672 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1674 =item Missing command in piped open
1676 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1677 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1679 =item Missing operator before %s?
1681 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1682 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1684 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1686 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than
1687 closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place
1688 you were last editing.
1690 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1692 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1693 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1694 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1696 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1699 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1701 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1703 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1704 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1707 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1709 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1710 be created for some peculiar reason.
1712 =item Module name must be constant
1714 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1716 =item msg%s not implemented
1718 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1720 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1722 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1723 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1725 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1727 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1728 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1729 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
1730 provided for just this purpose.
1732 =item Negative length
1734 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1735 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1737 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1739 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1740 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1742 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1743 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1747 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1748 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1750 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1752 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1753 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1754 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1757 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1759 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1761 =item No comma allowed after %s
1763 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1764 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1765 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1767 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1768 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1769 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1770 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1771 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1772 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1773 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1774 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1775 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1776 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1777 this error was triggered?
1779 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1781 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1782 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1783 want to pipe the output from this command.
1785 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1787 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1788 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1789 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1790 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1791 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1794 =item No dbm on this machine
1796 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1797 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1799 =item No DBsub routine
1801 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1802 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1803 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1804 ordinary subroutine call.
1806 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1808 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1809 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1810 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1812 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1814 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1815 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1816 from which to read data for stdin.
1818 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1820 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1821 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1822 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1824 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1826 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1827 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1828 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1830 =item No Perl script found in input
1832 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1833 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1835 =item No setregid available
1837 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1840 =item No setreuid available
1842 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1845 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1847 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1850 =item No such array field
1852 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
1853 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
1854 array indices for that to work.
1856 =item No such field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
1858 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
1859 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
1860 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
1861 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
1863 =item No such pipe open
1865 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1866 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1867 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1869 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1871 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1872 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1874 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
1876 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
1877 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
1878 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
1879 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
1882 =item Not a CODE reference
1884 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1885 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1886 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1887 See also L<perlref>.
1889 =item Not a format reference
1891 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1892 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1894 =item Not a GLOB reference
1896 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1897 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1898 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1899 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1901 =item Not a HASH reference
1903 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1904 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1905 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1907 =item Not a perl script
1909 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1910 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1913 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1915 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1916 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1917 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1919 =item Not a subroutine reference
1921 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1922 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1923 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1924 See also L<perlref>.
1926 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1928 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1929 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1931 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1933 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1934 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1935 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1937 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1939 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1941 =item Not enough format arguments
1943 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1946 =item Null filename used
1948 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1949 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1951 =item Null picture in formline
1953 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1954 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1955 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1957 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1959 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1963 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1965 =item NULL regexp argument
1967 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1969 =item NULL regexp parameter
1971 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1973 =item Number too long
1975 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
1976 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
1977 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
1978 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
1980 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
1982 (W) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295)
1983 and therefore non-portable between systems. See L<perlport> for more
1984 on portability concerns.
1986 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
1988 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
1989 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
1991 =item Offset outside string
1993 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1994 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1995 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1996 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2000 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2004 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2006 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2008 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
2009 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
2010 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
2011 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
2012 true. See L<overload>.
2014 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2016 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
2017 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
2018 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
2019 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
2020 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
2022 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2024 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
2025 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
2027 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2029 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2030 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
2032 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2033 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2034 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
2035 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
2036 error is trappable I<once>.
2038 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2040 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2041 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2042 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
2043 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2045 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2047 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2048 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
2049 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2053 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
2056 =item panic: ck_grep
2058 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2060 =item panic: ck_split
2062 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2064 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2066 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
2067 are in the savestack.
2069 =item panic: del_backref
2071 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2076 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2077 it wasn't an eval context.
2079 =item panic: do_match
2081 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2083 =item panic: do_split
2085 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2087 =item panic: do_subst
2089 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2091 =item panic: do_trans
2093 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2097 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2101 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2102 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2104 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2106 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2108 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2110 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2112 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2114 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2118 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2119 it wasn't a block context.
2121 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2123 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
2125 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2127 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2128 invalid enum on the top of it.
2132 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2134 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2136 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2137 references to an object.
2139 =item panic: mapstart
2141 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2143 =item panic: null array
2145 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2147 =item panic: pad_alloc
2149 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2150 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2152 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2154 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2155 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2157 =item panic: pad_free po
2159 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2161 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2163 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2164 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2166 =item panic: pad_sv po
2168 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2170 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2172 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2173 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2175 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2177 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2179 =item panic: pp_iter
2181 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2183 =item panic: realloc
2185 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2187 =item panic: restartop
2189 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2190 didn't supply the destination.
2194 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2195 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2197 =item panic: scan_num
2199 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2201 =item panic: sv_insert
2203 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2206 =item panic: top_env
2208 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2212 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2214 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2216 (W) You said something like
2222 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2224 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2226 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2228 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2229 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2230 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2232 =item Permission denied
2234 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2236 =item pid %x not a child
2238 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2239 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2240 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2242 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2244 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2245 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2247 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2249 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2250 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2251 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2252 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2254 You probably wrote something like this:
2261 when you should have written this:
2268 If you really want comments, build your list the
2269 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2273 'b', # another comment
2276 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2278 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2279 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2280 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2283 You probably wrote something like this:
2287 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2288 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2292 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2294 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2295 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2296 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2297 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2299 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2301 (S) The old irregular construct
2305 is now misinterpreted as
2309 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2310 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2311 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2314 =item print on closed filehandle %s
2316 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2317 Check your logic flow.
2319 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
2321 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2322 Check your logic flow.
2324 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2326 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2327 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2328 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2332 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2334 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2335 or defined with a different function prototype.
2337 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2339 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2340 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2341 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2342 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2344 =item Read on closed filehandle %s
2346 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2347 Check your logic flow.
2349 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2351 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2353 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2355 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2356 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2357 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2359 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2361 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2362 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2364 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2366 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2367 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2369 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2371 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2372 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2373 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2374 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2376 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2377 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2378 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2379 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2381 =item Reference is already weak
2383 (W) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2384 Doing so has no effect.
2386 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2388 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2389 reference count of other than 1.
2391 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2393 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2394 could match an empty string.
2396 =item regexp memory corruption
2398 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2399 expression compiler gave it.
2401 =item regexp out of space
2403 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2405 =item Reversed %s= operator
2407 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2408 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2410 =item Runaway format
2412 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2413 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2414 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2415 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2416 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2418 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2420 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2421 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2422 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2423 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2424 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2425 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2427 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2428 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2429 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2432 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2434 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2435 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2436 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2437 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2438 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2439 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2441 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2442 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2443 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2446 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2448 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2449 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2451 =item Search pattern not terminated
2453 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2454 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2455 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2457 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2459 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2460 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2462 =item select not implemented
2464 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2466 =item sem%s not implemented
2468 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2470 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2472 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2473 that had previously been marked as free.
2475 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2477 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2478 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2480 =item Send on closed socket
2482 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2483 Check your logic flow.
2485 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2487 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2490 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2492 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2493 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2495 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2497 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2498 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2500 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2502 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2507 Also known as "500 Server error".
2509 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2511 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2512 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2513 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2514 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2515 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2516 for more information:
2518 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2519 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2520 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2521 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2522 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2524 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2526 =item setegid() not implemented
2528 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2529 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2532 =item seteuid() not implemented
2534 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2535 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2538 =item setrgid() not implemented
2540 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2541 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2544 =item setruid() not implemented
2546 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2547 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2550 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2552 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2553 because the world might have written on it already.
2555 =item shm%s not implemented
2557 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2559 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2561 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2563 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2565 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2566 put it into the wrong package?
2568 =item sort is now a reserved word
2570 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2571 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2573 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2575 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2576 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2577 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2579 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2581 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2582 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2586 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2587 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2588 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2590 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2592 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2593 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2595 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2597 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2598 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2599 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2600 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2603 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2605 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2606 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2607 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2608 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2609 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2611 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2613 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2614 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2617 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2619 (W) You redefined a subroutine, perhaps accidentally. To suppress this
2624 eval "sub name { ... }";
2627 =item Substitution loop
2629 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2630 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2631 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2632 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2634 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2636 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2637 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2638 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2640 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2642 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2643 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2644 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2646 =item substr outside of string
2648 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2649 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2650 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2651 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2652 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2654 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2656 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2657 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2659 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2661 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2662 real and effective uids or gids.
2666 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2668 A keyword is misspelled.
2669 A semicolon is missing.
2671 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2672 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2673 A closing quote is missing.
2675 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2676 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2677 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2678 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2679 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2680 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2681 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2682 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2683 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2685 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2687 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2688 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2691 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2693 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2694 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2695 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2696 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2698 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2700 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2701 Check your logic flow.
2703 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2705 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2706 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2708 =item tell() on unopened file
2710 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2711 never opened or has since been closed.
2713 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2715 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2716 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2718 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2720 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2721 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2730 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2731 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2733 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2735 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2736 to the probings of Configure.
2738 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2740 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2741 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2742 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2743 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2746 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2748 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2749 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2750 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2752 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL eviron elements (%s)
2754 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2756 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2757 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2758 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2759 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2760 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
2761 %ENV which produced the warning.
2763 =item times not implemented
2765 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2766 you're not running on Unix.
2768 =item Too few args to syscall
2770 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2771 system call to call, silly dilly.
2773 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2775 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2776 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2777 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2778 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2781 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2782 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2783 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2784 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2786 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2787 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2789 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2791 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2792 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2793 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2799 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2800 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2803 =item Too many args to syscall
2805 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2807 =item Too many arguments for %s
2809 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2811 =item trailing \ in regexp
2813 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2816 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
2818 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2819 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
2820 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
2822 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
2824 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2827 =item truncate not implemented
2829 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2830 Configure knows about.
2832 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2834 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2835 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2836 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2837 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2839 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2841 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
2842 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2844 =item umask not implemented
2846 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
2847 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
2849 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2851 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2853 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2855 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2856 contexts were entered and left.
2858 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2860 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2861 values were temporarily localized.
2863 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2865 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2866 were entered and left.
2868 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2870 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2871 scalars were allocated and freed.
2873 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2875 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2876 another package? See L<perlform>.
2878 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2880 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2881 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2883 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2885 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2886 has since been undefined.
2888 =item Undefined subroutine called
2890 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2891 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2893 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2895 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2896 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2898 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2900 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2901 another package? See L<perlform>.
2903 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
2905 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
2906 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
2908 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2910 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2911 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2913 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2915 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2917 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
2919 (F) The second argument of 3-arguments open is not one from the list
2920 of C<L<lt>>, C<L<gt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<+L<lt>>, C<+L<gt>>,
2921 C<+E<gt>E<gt>>, C<-|>, C<|-> of possible open() modes.
2923 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
2925 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
2926 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
2927 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
2928 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
2930 =item unmatched () in regexp
2932 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2933 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2934 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2936 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
2938 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than
2939 opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket.
2940 As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the
2941 place you were last editing.
2943 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2945 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2946 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2949 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2951 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2952 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2953 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2955 =item Unrecognized character %s
2957 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
2958 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
2959 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
2961 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
2963 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
2966 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2968 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2969 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2971 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
2973 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2974 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2975 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2977 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2979 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2980 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2981 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
2983 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2985 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2987 =item Unsupported function fork
2989 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
2991 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
2992 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
2993 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
2995 =item Unsupported function %s
2997 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2998 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3000 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3002 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3003 least that's what Configure thought.
3005 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
3007 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3008 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
3009 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
3010 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3012 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3014 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
3015 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3017 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3019 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
3020 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
3021 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
3022 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3024 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3026 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3027 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3029 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
3031 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
3032 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3034 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3036 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
3037 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
3038 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3040 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3042 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
3043 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
3044 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
3045 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
3047 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
3048 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
3049 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
3050 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
3051 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
3053 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3054 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
3055 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
3056 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
3058 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
3059 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3060 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3062 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3064 (D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
3065 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
3066 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
3067 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
3068 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
3069 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3071 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3073 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
3074 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
3077 =item Use of uninitialized value
3079 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
3080 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
3081 warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3083 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3085 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3087 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3089 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
3090 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
3091 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
3092 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
3093 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
3094 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
3098 when you meant to say
3100 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3102 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3103 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3108 when you should have said
3112 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3113 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3114 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3115 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3116 L<perlref> for more on this.
3118 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3120 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
3121 valid when C<untie> was called.
3123 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3125 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
3126 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
3127 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
3128 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
3129 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
3131 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3133 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3134 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3135 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3138 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3140 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
3141 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3142 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
3143 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
3144 on the front of your variable.
3146 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3148 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
3149 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
3150 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
3151 the outermost subroutine. For example:
3153 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3155 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3156 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
3157 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3158 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
3159 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
3160 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
3163 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
3164 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
3165 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
3166 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
3168 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3170 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
3171 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3173 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3174 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3175 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3176 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3177 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3178 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3180 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3181 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3182 will I<never> share the given variable.
3184 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3185 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3186 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3187 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3190 =item Variable syntax
3192 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3193 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3196 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3198 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3200 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3201 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3204 are supported and installed on your system.
3205 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3207 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3208 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3209 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3210 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3211 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3212 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3213 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3214 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3215 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3217 =item Warning: something's wrong
3219 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3220 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3222 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3224 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3225 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3227 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3229 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3230 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3231 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3232 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3236 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3240 but in actual fact, you got
3244 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3246 =item Write on closed filehandle %s
3248 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3249 Check your logic flow.
3251 =item X outside of string
3253 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3254 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3256 =item x outside of string
3258 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3259 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3261 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3263 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3265 =item Xsub called in sort
3267 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3269 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3271 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3272 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3273 Use a filename instead.
3275 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3277 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3278 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3279 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3280 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3282 =item You need to quote "%s"
3284 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3285 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3286 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3287 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3289 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
3291 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3292 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3293 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
3295 =item \1 better written as $1
3297 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3298 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3299 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3300 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3301 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3303 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3305 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3306 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3307 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3309 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3311 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3312 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3313 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3314 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3317 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3324 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3326 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3327 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3329 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3331 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3339 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3340 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3341 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3342 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3344 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3346 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3347 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3349 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3351 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3352 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3353 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3354 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"