3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
22 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
23 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
24 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
27 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
28 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
29 Since the messages are listed in alphabetical order, the symbols
30 C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
34 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
36 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try that
39 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
41 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
42 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
43 if you want to localize a package variable.
45 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
47 (W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
48 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
49 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
50 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
53 =item "no" not allowed in expression
55 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
56 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
58 =item "use" not allowed in expression
60 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
61 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
63 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
65 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
68 =item / cannot take a count
70 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
71 but you have also specified an explicit size for the string.
74 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
76 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
77 which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z
78 to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked.
81 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
83 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
84 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*.
87 =item / must follow a numeric type
89 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#',
90 but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.
93 =item % may only be used in unpack
95 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
96 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
97 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
99 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
101 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
102 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
104 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
106 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
107 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
109 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
111 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
112 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
113 C<'>-delimited regular expression.
115 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
117 (W) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
118 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true
119 or false result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string,
120 which is probably not what you had in mind.
122 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
124 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
125 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
126 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
128 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
130 (W) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a
131 definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call
132 conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype
133 declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine
134 definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively,
135 if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put
136 an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L<perlsub>.
138 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
140 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
143 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
145 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
147 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
150 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
152 or a hash slice, such as
154 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
155 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
157 =item %s did not return a true value
159 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
160 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
161 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
162 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
164 =item %s found where operator expected
166 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
167 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
168 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
169 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
171 =item %s had compilation errors
173 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
175 =item %s has too many errors
177 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
178 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
180 =item %s matches null string many times
182 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
183 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
185 =item %s never introduced
187 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
188 before it could possibly have been used.
190 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
192 (W) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a package-specific handler.
193 That name might have a meaning to Perl itself some day, even though it
194 doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a mixed-case attribute name, instead.
199 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
201 =item %s: Command not found
203 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
204 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
207 =item %s: Expression syntax
209 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
210 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
213 =item %s: Undefined variable
215 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
216 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
221 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
222 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
225 =item (in cleanup) %s
227 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
228 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
229 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
230 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
231 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
234 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
235 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
237 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
239 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
240 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
241 the previous line just because you saw this message.
243 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
245 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
246 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
248 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
250 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
251 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
253 =item C<-p> destination: %s
255 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
256 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
257 redirected it with select().)
259 =item 500 Server error
263 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
265 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
266 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
268 =item @ outside of string
270 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
271 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
273 =item <> should be quotes
275 (F) You wrote C<require E<lt>fileE<gt>> when you should have written
278 =item accept() on closed fd
280 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
281 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
283 =item Allocation too large: %lx
285 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
287 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
289 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
290 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
291 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
292 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
293 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
294 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
296 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
298 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
300 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
302 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
303 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
304 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
306 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
308 (W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
309 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
310 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
313 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
314 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
315 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
316 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
318 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
319 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
320 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">
323 =item Args must match #! line
325 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
326 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
327 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
328 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
330 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
332 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
333 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
334 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
336 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
338 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
339 is now heavily deprecated.
341 =item assertion botched: %s
343 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
345 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
347 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
349 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
351 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
352 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
353 know which context to supply to the right side.
355 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
357 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
358 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
361 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
363 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
364 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
365 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
366 that can no longer be found in the table.
368 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
370 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
371 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
372 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
373 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
376 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
378 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
380 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
382 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
383 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
384 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
385 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
386 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
387 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
389 =item Attempt to join self
391 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
392 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
393 need to move the join() to some other thread.
395 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
397 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
398 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
399 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
400 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
401 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
404 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
406 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
407 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
408 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
410 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
412 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
413 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
414 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
415 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
417 =item Bad filehandle: %s
419 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
420 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
421 did it in another package.
423 =item Bad free() ignored
425 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
426 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
427 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
429 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
430 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
431 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
436 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
438 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
440 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
441 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
444 =item Bad name after %s::
446 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
447 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
456 $sym = "mypack::$var";
458 =item Bad realloc() ignored
460 (S) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had never been
461 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
462 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
464 =item Bad symbol for array
466 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
467 wasn't a symbol table entry.
469 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
471 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
472 wasn't a symbol table entry.
474 =item Bad symbol for hash
476 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
477 wasn't a symbol table entry.
479 =item Badly placed ()'s
481 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
482 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
485 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
487 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
488 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
489 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
491 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
493 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
494 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
495 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
497 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
499 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
500 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
502 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
504 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
505 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
506 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
507 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
508 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
510 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
512 (W) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
513 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
514 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
516 =item bind() on closed fd
518 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
519 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
521 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
523 (W) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
525 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
527 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
529 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
531 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
532 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
533 so it was truncated to the string shown.
535 =item Callback called exit
537 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
538 exited by calling exit.
540 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
542 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
543 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
544 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
545 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
547 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
549 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
550 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
552 =item Can't "last" outside a block
554 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
555 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
556 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
557 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
558 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
559 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
561 =item Can't "next" outside a block
563 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
564 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
565 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
566 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
567 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
569 =item Can't read CRTL environ
571 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
572 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
573 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
574 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
576 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
578 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
579 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
580 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
581 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
582 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
584 =item Can't bless non-reference value
586 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
587 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
589 =item Can't break at that line
591 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
592 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
595 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
597 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
598 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
599 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
601 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
603 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
604 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
605 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
606 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
608 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
610 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
611 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
612 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
613 Something like this will reproduce the error:
616 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
617 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
619 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
621 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
622 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
623 Something like this will reproduce the error:
626 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
627 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
629 =item Can't chdir to %s
631 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
632 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
634 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s"
636 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
638 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
640 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
641 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
651 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
653 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
655 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
656 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
658 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
660 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
661 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
663 =item Can't coerce array into hash
665 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
666 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
667 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
669 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
671 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
672 or other plumbing problems.
674 =item Can't declare %s in my
676 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
677 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
679 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
681 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
683 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
685 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
686 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
689 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
691 (S) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
692 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
693 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
695 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
697 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
698 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
700 =item Can't do setegid!
702 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
705 =item Can't do seteuid!
707 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
709 =item Can't do setuid
711 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
712 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
713 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
714 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
715 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
716 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
718 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
720 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
721 without flags is emulated.
723 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
725 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
726 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
728 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
730 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
731 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
733 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
735 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
736 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
737 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
738 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
739 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
740 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
744 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
745 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
746 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
748 =item Can't execute %s
750 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
751 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
753 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
755 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
756 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
757 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
759 =item Can't find %s on PATH
761 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
764 =item Can't find label %s
766 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
767 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
769 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
771 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
772 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
773 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
775 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
777 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
778 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
779 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
783 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
785 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
787 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
788 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
789 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
790 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
791 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
792 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
793 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
794 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
795 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
796 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
797 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
798 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
799 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
800 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
802 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
804 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
805 can't retrieve its name for later use.
807 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
809 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
810 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
812 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
814 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
815 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
816 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
819 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
821 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
822 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
824 =item Can't localize through a reference
826 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
827 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
828 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
829 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
831 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
833 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
834 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
835 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
838 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
840 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
841 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
842 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
843 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
845 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
847 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
848 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
849 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
850 doing C<make install>.
852 =item Can't locate %s
854 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
855 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
856 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
857 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra
858 library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or
859 maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>
862 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
864 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
865 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
866 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
868 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
870 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
873 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
875 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
877 =item Can't modify %s in %s
879 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
880 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
882 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
884 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
885 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
887 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
889 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
892 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
894 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
897 =item Can't open %s: %s
899 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
900 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
901 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
902 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
905 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
907 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
908 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
909 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
910 and then read it in under a different file handle.
912 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
914 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
915 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
916 command line for writing.
918 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
920 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
921 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
923 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
925 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
926 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
929 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
931 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
932 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
934 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
936 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
938 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
940 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
941 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
942 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
943 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
945 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
947 (S) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup file. Perl
948 was unable to remove the original file to replace it with the modified
949 file. The file was left unmodified.
951 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
953 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
954 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
956 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
958 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
959 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
961 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
963 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
966 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
968 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
969 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
971 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
973 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such
974 as temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue.
977 =item Can't stat script "%s"
979 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
980 it open already. Bizarre.
982 =item Can't swap uid and euid
984 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
987 =item Can't take log of %g
989 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
990 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
991 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
992 the negative numbers.
994 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
996 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
997 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
998 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1000 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1002 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1003 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1004 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1008 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1009 as the main Perl stack.
1011 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
1013 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
1014 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
1015 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
1016 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1018 =item Can't upgrade to undef
1020 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
1021 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
1022 code calling sv_upgrade.
1024 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
1026 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1027 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1028 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1030 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1032 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1033 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
1034 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1035 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1038 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
1040 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
1041 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
1042 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
1044 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1046 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
1048 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1050 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1051 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1052 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1054 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
1056 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
1057 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
1058 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
1059 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
1060 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
1062 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
1064 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1065 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1067 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1069 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
1070 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1072 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1074 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1075 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1077 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1079 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
1080 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
1081 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
1082 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1085 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1087 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1088 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1089 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1091 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1093 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1094 references can be weakened.
1096 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1098 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
1099 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1100 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1102 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
1104 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
1105 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
1107 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1109 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1110 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1111 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1113 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1115 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
1118 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1120 (W) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1121 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
1122 for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .]
1123 are not currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for
1126 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1128 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
1129 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
1130 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1131 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1132 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1134 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1136 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1137 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
1138 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1139 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1140 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1142 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
1144 (W) A novice will sometimes say
1146 chmod 777, $filename
1148 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1149 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1151 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1153 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1155 =item Compilation failed in require
1157 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1158 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1159 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1161 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1163 (W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1164 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1165 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1166 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1167 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1168 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1169 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1170 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1171 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1173 =item connect() on closed fd
1175 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1176 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1178 =item Constant is not %s reference
1180 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1181 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1182 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1183 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1184 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1186 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1188 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1189 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1192 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1194 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1195 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1198 =item constant(%s): %%^H is not localized
1200 (F) When setting compile-time-lexicalized hash %^H one should set the
1201 corresponding bit of $^H as well.
1203 =item constant(%s): %s
1205 (F) Compile-time-substitutions (such as overloaded constants and
1206 character names) were not correctly set up.
1208 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1210 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1212 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1214 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1216 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1218 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1219 expression compiler gave it.
1221 =item corrupted regexp program
1223 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1224 a valid magic number.
1226 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1228 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1229 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1230 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1231 case it indicates something else.
1233 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1235 (D) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
1236 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
1237 just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1239 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1241 (D) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
1242 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
1243 just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1245 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1247 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1248 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1249 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1251 =item Did not produce a valid header
1255 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1257 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1259 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1261 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1262 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1266 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1267 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1269 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1271 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1272 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1273 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1274 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1275 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1276 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1277 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1278 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1281 =item Document contains no data
1285 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1287 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1289 =item do_study: out of memory
1291 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1293 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1295 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1298 =item elseif should be elsif
1300 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1301 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1302 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1303 unlikely to be what you want.
1305 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
1307 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1308 The interpreter is immediately exited.
1310 =item entering effective %s failed
1312 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1313 effective uids or gids failed.
1315 =item Error converting file specification %s
1317 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1318 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1319 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1320 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1321 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1323 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1325 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1326 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1327 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1329 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1331 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1332 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1333 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1335 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1337 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1338 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1339 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1340 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1341 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1342 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1344 =item Excessively long <> operator
1346 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1347 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1348 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1349 variable and glob that.
1351 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1353 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1355 =item Exiting eval via %s
1357 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1358 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1360 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1362 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1363 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1364 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1366 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1368 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1369 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1371 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1373 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1374 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1376 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1378 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1379 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1380 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1381 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1383 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1385 (W) A character class range must start and end at a literal character, not
1386 another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-" in your false
1387 range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the "-", "\-".
1390 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1392 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1393 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1394 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1395 the Perl source code is distressed.
1397 =item fcntl is not implemented
1399 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1400 PDP-11 or something?
1402 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1404 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1405 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1406 the FileHandle package.
1408 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1410 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1411 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1412 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1413 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1416 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1418 (W) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
1419 intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1420 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1421 you intended only to read from the file, use "E<lt>". See
1424 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1426 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1427 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1428 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1431 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1433 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1434 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1435 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1438 =item Format %s redefined
1440 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1444 eval "format NAME =...";
1447 =item Format not terminated
1449 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1450 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1452 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1462 (or something like that).
1464 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1466 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1468 =item gethostent not implemented
1470 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1471 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1474 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1476 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1477 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1479 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1481 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1482 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1484 =item Glob not terminated
1486 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1487 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1488 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1489 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1491 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1493 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1494 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1495 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1497 =item goto must have label
1499 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1500 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1502 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1504 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1505 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1506 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1508 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1510 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1511 is now heavily deprecated.
1513 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1515 (W) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1516 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1517 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1519 =item Identifier too long
1521 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1522 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1523 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1524 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1526 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1528 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1529 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1530 used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1532 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1534 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1535 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1536 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1539 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1541 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1542 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1543 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1545 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1546 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1547 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1548 properly converting the text file format.
1550 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1551 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1552 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1554 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1555 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1558 =item Illegal division by zero
1560 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1561 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1563 =item Illegal modulus zero
1565 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1566 don't take to this kindly.
1568 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1570 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1572 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1574 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1576 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1578 (W) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1579 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1581 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1583 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1584 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1586 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1588 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f
1589 in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1590 before the illegal character.
1592 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1594 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1595 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1597 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1599 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1600 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1602 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1604 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1605 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1606 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1607 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1608 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1609 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1610 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1612 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1614 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1615 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1616 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1617 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1618 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1619 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1620 for more information.
1622 =item Insecure directory in %s
1624 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1625 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1628 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1630 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1631 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1632 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1633 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1634 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1636 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1638 (W) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either
1639 as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for your
1640 architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a
1641 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1642 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1643 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1644 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1645 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1648 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1650 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1651 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1652 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1653 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1654 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1655 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1656 and execute the specified command.
1658 =item internal disaster in regexp
1660 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1662 =item glob failed (%s)
1664 (W) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1665 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1666 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1667 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1668 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1669 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1670 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1671 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1672 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1673 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1676 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1678 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1680 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1682 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1683 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1685 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1687 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not recognized
1688 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1690 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1692 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1693 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1695 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1697 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1698 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1700 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1702 (F) Something other than a comma or whitespace was seen between the
1703 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute
1704 had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated
1705 too soon. See L<attributes>.
1707 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1709 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1710 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1713 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1715 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1716 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1719 =item ioctl is not implemented
1721 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1722 strange for a machine that supports C.
1724 =item junk on end of regexp
1726 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1728 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1730 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1731 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1732 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1734 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1736 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1737 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1740 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1742 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1743 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1746 =item leaving effective %s failed
1748 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1749 effective uids or gids failed.
1751 =item listen() on closed fd
1753 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1754 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1756 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1758 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1759 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context.
1760 See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1762 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1764 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1765 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1767 =item Method %s not permitted
1771 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1773 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1774 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1775 ended earlier on the current line.
1777 =item Misplaced _ in number
1779 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1781 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1783 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1784 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1785 one line to the next.
1787 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1789 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1790 double-quotish context.
1792 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1794 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1795 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1797 =item Missing command in piped open
1799 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1800 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1802 =item Missing operator before %s?
1804 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1805 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1807 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1809 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than
1810 closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place
1811 you were last editing.
1813 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1815 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1816 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1817 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1819 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1822 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1824 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1826 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1827 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1830 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1832 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1833 be created for some peculiar reason.
1835 =item Module name must be constant
1837 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1839 =item msg%s not implemented
1841 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1843 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1845 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1846 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1848 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1850 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that they
1851 have a name with which they can be found.
1853 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1855 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1856 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1857 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1858 provided for this purpose.
1860 =item Negative length
1862 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1863 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1865 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1867 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1868 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1870 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1871 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1875 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1876 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1878 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1880 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1881 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1882 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1885 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1887 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1889 =item No comma allowed after %s
1891 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1892 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1893 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1895 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1896 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1897 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1898 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1899 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1900 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1901 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1902 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1903 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1904 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1905 this error was triggered?
1907 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1909 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1910 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1911 want to pipe the output from this command.
1913 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1915 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1916 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1917 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1918 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1919 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1922 =item No dbm on this machine
1924 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1925 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1927 =item No DBsub routine
1929 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1930 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1931 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1932 ordinary subroutine call.
1934 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1936 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1937 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1938 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1940 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1942 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1943 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1944 from which to read data for stdin.
1946 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1948 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1949 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1950 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1952 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1954 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1955 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1956 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1958 =item No Perl script found in input
1960 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1961 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1963 =item No setregid available
1965 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1968 =item No setreuid available
1970 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1973 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1975 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1978 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
1980 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
1981 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
1982 array indices for that to work.
1984 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
1986 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
1987 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
1988 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
1989 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
1991 =item No such pipe open
1993 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1994 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1995 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1997 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1999 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
2000 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2002 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2004 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2005 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2006 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
2007 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
2010 =item Not a CODE reference
2012 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2013 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2014 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2015 See also L<perlref>.
2017 =item Not a format reference
2019 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2020 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2022 =item Not a GLOB reference
2024 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
2025 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2026 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
2027 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2029 =item Not a HASH reference
2031 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
2032 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2033 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2035 =item Not a perl script
2037 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2038 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2041 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2043 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
2044 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2045 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2047 =item Not a subroutine reference
2049 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2050 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2051 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
2052 See also L<perlref>.
2054 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2056 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2057 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2059 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2061 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
2062 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
2063 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2065 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2067 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2069 =item Not enough format arguments
2071 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
2074 =item Null filename used
2076 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
2077 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2079 =item Null picture in formline
2081 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2082 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2083 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2085 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2087 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
2091 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2093 =item NULL regexp argument
2095 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2097 =item NULL regexp parameter
2099 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2101 =item Number too long
2103 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
2104 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
2105 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
2106 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
2108 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2110 (W) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295)
2111 and therefore non-portable between systems. See L<perlport> for more
2112 on portability concerns.
2114 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2116 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2118 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
2119 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2121 =item Offset outside string
2123 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2124 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
2125 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
2126 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2130 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2134 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2136 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2138 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
2139 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
2140 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
2141 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
2142 true. See L<overload>.
2144 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2146 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
2147 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
2148 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
2149 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
2150 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
2152 =item Out of memory!
2154 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2155 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl
2156 has no option but to exit immediately.
2158 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2160 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
2161 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
2163 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2165 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2166 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
2168 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2169 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2170 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
2171 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
2172 error is trappable I<once>.
2174 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2176 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2177 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2178 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
2179 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2181 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2183 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2184 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
2185 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2189 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
2192 =item panic: ck_grep
2194 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2196 =item panic: ck_split
2198 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2200 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2202 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
2203 are in the savestack.
2205 =item panic: del_backref
2207 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2212 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2213 it wasn't an eval context.
2215 =item panic: do_match
2217 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2219 =item panic: do_split
2221 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2223 =item panic: do_subst
2225 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2227 =item panic: do_trans
2229 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2233 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2237 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2238 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2240 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2242 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2244 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2246 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2248 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2250 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2254 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2255 it wasn't a block context.
2257 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2259 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
2261 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2263 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2264 invalid enum on the top of it.
2268 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2270 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2272 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2273 references to an object.
2275 =item panic: mapstart
2277 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2279 =item panic: null array
2281 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2283 =item panic: pad_alloc
2285 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2286 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2288 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2290 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2291 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2293 =item panic: pad_free po
2295 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2297 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2299 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2300 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2302 =item panic: pad_sv po
2304 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2306 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2308 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2309 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2311 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2313 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2315 =item panic: pp_iter
2317 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2319 =item panic: realloc
2321 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2323 =item panic: restartop
2325 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2326 didn't supply the destination.
2330 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2331 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2333 =item panic: scan_num
2335 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2337 =item panic: sv_insert
2339 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2342 =item panic: top_env
2344 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2348 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2350 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2352 (W) You said something like
2358 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2360 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2362 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2364 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2365 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2366 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2368 =item Permission denied
2370 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2372 =item pid %x not a child
2374 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2375 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2376 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2378 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2380 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2381 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2383 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2385 (W) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2386 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2388 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2390 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2391 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2392 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2393 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2395 You probably wrote something like this:
2402 when you should have written this:
2409 If you really want comments, build your list the
2410 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2414 'b', # another comment
2417 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2419 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2420 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2421 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2424 You probably wrote something like this:
2428 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2429 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2433 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2435 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2436 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2437 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2438 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2440 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2442 (S) The old irregular construct
2446 is now misinterpreted as
2450 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2451 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2452 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2455 =item Premature end of script headers
2459 =item print on closed filehandle %s
2461 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2462 Check your logic flow.
2464 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
2466 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2467 Check your logic flow.
2469 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2471 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2472 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2473 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2477 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2479 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2480 or defined with a different function prototype.
2482 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2484 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2485 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2486 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2487 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2489 =item Read on closed filehandle %s
2491 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2492 Check your logic flow.
2494 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2496 (S) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had already
2499 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2501 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2503 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2505 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2506 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2507 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2509 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2511 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2512 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2514 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2516 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2517 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2519 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2521 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2522 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2523 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2524 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2526 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2527 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2528 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2529 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2531 =item Reference is already weak
2533 (W) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2534 Doing so has no effect.
2536 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2538 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2539 reference count of other than 1.
2541 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2543 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2544 could match an empty string.
2546 =item regexp memory corruption
2548 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2549 expression compiler gave it.
2551 =item regexp out of space
2553 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2555 =item Reversed %s= operator
2557 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2558 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2560 =item Runaway format
2562 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2563 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2564 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2565 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2566 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2568 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2570 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2571 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2572 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2573 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2574 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2575 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2577 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2578 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2579 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2582 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2584 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2585 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2586 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2587 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2588 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2589 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2591 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2592 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2593 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2596 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2598 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2599 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2601 =item Search pattern not terminated
2603 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2604 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2605 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2607 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2609 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2610 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2612 =item select not implemented
2614 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2616 =item sem%s not implemented
2618 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2620 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2622 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2623 that had previously been marked as free.
2625 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2627 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2628 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2630 =item Send on closed socket
2632 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2633 Check your logic flow.
2635 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2637 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2640 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2642 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2643 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2645 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2647 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2648 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2650 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2652 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2657 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
2658 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error
2659 text varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen
2660 variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted",
2661 "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and
2662 "Did not produce a valid header".
2664 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2666 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2667 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2668 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2669 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2670 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2671 for more information:
2673 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2674 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2675 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2676 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2677 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2679 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2681 =item setegid() not implemented
2683 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2684 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2687 =item seteuid() not implemented
2689 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2690 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2693 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
2695 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no arguments,
2696 unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process group ID.
2698 =item setrgid() not implemented
2700 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2701 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2704 =item setruid() not implemented
2706 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2707 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2710 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2712 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2713 because the world might have written on it already.
2715 =item shm%s not implemented
2717 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2719 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2721 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2723 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2725 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2726 put it into the wrong package?
2728 =item sort is now a reserved word
2730 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2731 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2733 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2735 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2736 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2737 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2739 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2741 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2742 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2746 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2747 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2748 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2750 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2752 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2753 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2755 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2757 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2758 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2759 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2760 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2763 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2765 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2766 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2767 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2768 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2769 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2771 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2773 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2774 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2777 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2779 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2783 eval "sub name { ... }";
2786 =item Substitution loop
2788 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2789 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2790 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2791 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2793 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2795 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2796 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2797 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2799 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2801 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2802 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2803 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2805 =item substr outside of string
2807 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2808 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2809 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2810 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2811 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2813 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2815 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2816 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2818 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2820 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2821 real and effective uids or gids.
2825 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2827 A keyword is misspelled.
2828 A semicolon is missing.
2830 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2831 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2832 A closing quote is missing.
2834 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2835 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2836 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2837 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2838 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2839 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2840 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2841 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2842 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2844 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2846 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2847 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2850 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2852 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2853 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2854 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2855 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2857 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2859 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2860 Check your logic flow.
2862 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2864 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2865 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2867 =item tell() on unopened file
2869 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2870 never opened or has since been closed.
2872 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2874 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2875 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2877 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2879 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2880 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2889 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2890 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2892 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2894 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2895 to the probings of Configure.
2897 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2899 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2900 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2901 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2902 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2905 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2907 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2908 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2909 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2911 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
2913 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2915 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2916 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2917 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2918 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2919 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
2920 %ENV which produced the warning.
2922 =item times not implemented
2924 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2925 you're not running on Unix.
2927 =item Too few args to syscall
2929 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2930 system call to call, silly dilly.
2932 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2934 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2935 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2936 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2937 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2940 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2941 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2942 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2943 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2945 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2946 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2948 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2950 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2951 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2952 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2958 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2959 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2962 =item Too many args to syscall
2964 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2966 =item Too many arguments for %s
2968 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2970 =item trailing \ in regexp
2972 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2975 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
2977 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2978 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
2979 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
2981 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
2983 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2986 =item truncate not implemented
2988 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2989 Configure knows about.
2991 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2993 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2994 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2995 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2996 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2998 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3000 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3001 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3003 =item umask not implemented
3005 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
3006 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3008 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3010 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3012 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3014 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
3015 contexts were entered and left.
3017 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3019 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
3020 values were temporarily localized.
3022 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3024 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
3025 were entered and left.
3027 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3029 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
3030 scalars were allocated and freed.
3032 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3034 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3035 another package? See L<perlform>.
3037 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3039 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
3040 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3042 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3044 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
3045 has since been undefined.
3047 =item Undefined subroutine called
3049 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3050 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3052 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3054 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
3055 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3057 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3059 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3060 another package? See L<perlform>.
3062 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3064 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
3065 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
3067 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3069 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3070 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3072 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3074 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
3076 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3078 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3079 of valid modes: C<L<lt>>, C<L<gt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<+L<lt>>,
3080 C<+L<gt>>, C<+E<gt>E<gt>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3082 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3084 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3085 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3086 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3087 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3089 =item unmatched () in regexp
3091 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3092 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
3093 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3095 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3097 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than
3098 opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket.
3099 As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the
3100 place you were last editing.
3102 =item unmatched [] in regexp
3104 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3105 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
3108 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3110 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
3111 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
3112 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
3114 =item Unrecognized character %s
3116 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3117 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3118 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3120 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3122 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
3125 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3127 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
3128 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
3130 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3132 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
3133 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
3134 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
3136 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3138 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
3139 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
3140 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3142 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3144 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3146 =item Unsupported function fork
3148 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3150 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
3151 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
3152 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3154 =item Unsupported function %s
3156 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3157 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3159 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3161 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3162 least that's what Configure thought.
3164 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
3166 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3167 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
3168 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
3169 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3171 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3173 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing an
3174 attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3175 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3176 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3178 =item Unterminated attribute list
3180 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start
3181 of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3182 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute
3183 too soon. See L<attributes>.
3185 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3187 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
3188 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3190 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3192 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
3193 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
3194 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
3195 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3197 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3199 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3200 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3202 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
3204 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
3205 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3207 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3209 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
3210 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
3211 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3213 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3215 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
3216 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
3217 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
3218 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
3220 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
3221 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
3222 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
3223 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
3224 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
3226 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3227 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
3228 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
3229 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
3231 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
3232 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3233 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3235 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3237 (D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
3238 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
3239 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
3240 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
3241 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
3242 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3244 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3246 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
3247 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
3250 =item Use of uninitialized value
3252 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
3253 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
3254 warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3256 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3258 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3260 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3262 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
3263 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
3264 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
3265 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
3266 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
3267 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
3271 when you meant to say
3273 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3275 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3276 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3281 when you should have said
3285 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3286 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3287 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3288 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3289 L<perlref> for more on this.
3291 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3293 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
3294 valid when C<untie> was called.
3296 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3298 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
3299 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
3300 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
3301 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
3302 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
3304 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3306 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3307 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3308 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3311 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3313 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
3314 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3315 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
3316 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
3317 on the front of your variable.
3319 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3321 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
3322 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
3323 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
3324 the outermost subroutine. For example:
3326 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3328 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3329 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
3330 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3331 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
3332 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
3333 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
3336 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
3337 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
3338 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
3339 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
3341 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3343 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
3344 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3346 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3347 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3348 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3349 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3350 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3351 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3353 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3354 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3355 will I<never> share the given variable.
3357 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3358 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3359 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3360 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3363 =item Variable syntax
3365 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3366 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3369 =item Version number must be a constant number
3371 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3372 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3375 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3377 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3379 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3380 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3383 are supported and installed on your system.
3384 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3386 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3387 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3388 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3389 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3390 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3391 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3392 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3393 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3394 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3396 =item Warning: something's wrong
3398 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3399 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3401 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3403 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3404 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3406 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3408 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3409 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3410 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3411 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3415 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3419 but in actual fact, you got
3423 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3425 =item Write on closed filehandle %s
3427 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3428 Check your logic flow.
3430 =item X outside of string
3432 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3433 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3435 =item x outside of string
3437 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3438 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3440 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3442 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3444 =item Xsub called in sort
3446 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3448 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3450 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3451 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3452 Use a filename instead.
3454 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3456 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3457 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3458 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3459 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3461 =item You need to quote "%s"
3463 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3464 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3465 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3466 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3468 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
3470 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3471 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3472 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
3474 =item \1 better written as $1
3476 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3477 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3478 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3479 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3480 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3482 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3484 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3485 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3486 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3488 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3490 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3491 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3492 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3493 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3496 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3503 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3505 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3506 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3508 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3510 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3518 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3519 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3520 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3521 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3523 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3525 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3526 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3528 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3530 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3531 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3532 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3533 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"